Collection Additions: Volume 1

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the Game Room. So, after finishing school I had hoped to have a lot more time to play video games, but as it turns out being an adult isn't quite as simple as that, and now that I have a fancy new job I don't quite have that luxury. As such, I don't think I'll be able to continue my "game of the week" series every single Sunday. However, on the flip side now that I have a steady source of income, I can actually buy more games again and continue to grow my collection.

As such, I've decided to do a weekly update on any new additions I have coming in, which is much easier for me to write about than reviewing a single game every week. I'll probably do some quick reviews, which I have in store for today, and I'll also continue to periodically do some big reviews as well. So let's check out what I bagged this week with my very first paycheck I just received.

I walked into my local retro gaming establishment with the full intention of blowing a lot of money on games. I didn't end up spending that much, but I did walk a way with a handful of Turbo Grafx 16 games, which I always enjoy getting ahold of since you just don't see them all that often. The first one that caught my eye was Alien Crush, since it's one of the few TG-16 games I have actually heard of previously and I knew to be a good game. The rest was a crapshoot since I'd never seen any of them play, but as I mentioned before, I'll take any TG-16 games I can get my hands on really.

They're all game-only which kind of sucks because I do prefer to buy games as complete as possible, but with TG-16 games it's really tough to do so, especially in person and not from anywhere on the internet. All TG-16 games came with a jewel case and a manual, and even then they're still incomplete without a big outer cardboard box. Including the ones I just bought, I have fourteen TG-16 games in all and only two of them I have manuals for. I also have one with a jewel case, but that's about it. Anywho, even if it is just the games I'm happy to own them. I gave them all a quick test to make sure they work, and while I was doing so I briefly played each of them and jotted down a few quick first impressions, which I'll go into now for each one.

Alien Crush
As I mentioned before, this was the one I was most interested in out of all of them. However, I couldn't seem to get it working at first. I was worried that is was broken, but after much messing around and cleaning the contact points and refusing to give up (because I'm lazy and I really didn't feel like going back to the game store today), I got it going. For those who don't know, it's an alien-themed pinball game, and yes, it is exactly as weird as it sounds, but in the best possible way. The graphics and music are great, and I especially like the xenomorph influence straight out of the movie Alien that is present everywhere. It's your basic pinball game, just with a fun grotesque alien twist to it. Everything was very responsive, and it was a lot of fun. I'll definitely play more of this one when I get a chance.

Double Dungeons
With this one I didn't know what to expect at all, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It's essentially a first person RPG, reminiscent of those 90's point and click PC games where you explore from a first-person view. It also reminded me quite a bit of the Sega Genesis game Fatal Labyrinth, what with the types of enemies you encounter and the attack system. I couldn't figure out how to use items or anything like that, and ended up dying a few times before moving on, but it's definitely interesting and has a great first person perspective for it's time.

Final Lap Twin
Your standard grand-prix style racing game, as the title alludes to. Reminded me a lot of games like Top Gear on Super Nintendo. The graphics are quite nice and the controls are nice and fluent. Turns are a little tough to navigate, but with some practice I'm sure I could get the handle of it.

Power Golf
Firstly, I should say that I really hate golf. I don't have anything against anyone who plays it, but I just personally find it incredibly boring and uninteresting. It's always kind of amazed me just how many video games exist that are dedicated to golfing, but nonetheless I have never really enjoyed any of them, not even cartoonish ones like Mario Golf. As for this game, I literally could not even figure out how to hit the ball. The controller only has two buttons, so how hard could it be? I had no idea what I was doing wrong and after 10 swings, the words "give up" flashed on the screen, to which I promptly complied.

Victory Run
As was the case with Alien Crush, this one gave me problems starting up as well. I should also mention that the other games each started up on the first try, so it's not my console that's being finicky or anything. Anyway, it's another racing game..or...is it? I don't know if I missed something here, but it didn't seem like there was any race going on at all. You just drive...and drive...and drive...occasionally turning, and sometimes the screen jitters up or down which I guess is supposed to convey going up or downhill but really was just giving me slight motion sickness. There's a day to night transition in the background, and at some point I noticed two things: you can switch to a higher gear which makes the car go faster, and there's also a time limit. But nothing else happened, the time ran out, and my patience ran out too.

So that's that for this week. Overall I'm happy with what I got and what I paid for it, even if I did get a few stinkers. TG-16 games are always interesting to me just because I never even knew the console existed as a kid, so it's pretty fun just exploring what it has to offer.

Stay tuned for more weekly updates and as always, game on.

The Lost Art Of Strategy Guides

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Due to a bit of a hectic week I have to take a break from my game of the week segment this week, but hopefully I should be back on track by next week. For now, here's a quicky about my thoughts on strategy guides.

It’s hard to imagine, but there once was a time when you couldn’t just type in a question on your phone or at your computer and it would immediately generate an answer for you. No, in the olden days we had to rely on good old ink and paper if we needed guidance, and in the realm of video games this came about in the form of strategy guides. There was always a rack full of them at whatever game store you walked into, those huge colorful booklets with the game’s artwork plastered all over the cover.

Like many other mediums, strategy guides have been rendered all but obsolete by the digital age that has taken over all facets of life, and if I’m not mistaken they have pretty much died out altogether. However, just because they have become outdated doesn’t mean they have completely lost all appeal, and like vinyl records they can still be appreciated for their wonderful artwork and general feelings of nostalgia when using one.

I have a decent stack of strategy guides, having started collecting them not too long ago just for the fun of it, and personally I think there is still a lot of value in owning them. Like I mentioned before, I love skimming through them and looking at all the great artwork they have. Sure, you could just drop “Mario” into a Google search and get 10 million images of Super Mario Bros. artwork, but there’s something about having it printed on a page in front of you that’s just satisfying as hell.

Strategy guides weren’t just helpful for certain games; they were all but mandatory for some, especially if you were a completionist trying to unlock every bit of extra content and squeeze every little penny out of the game you just bought. For example, not only is the Metal Gear Solid 2 guide I have humongous (appropriate for such a complex game), it also goes into fine detail about the vast amount of easter eggs and secrets the game has to offer, which is something you would certainly never be able to tackle on your own in the days when the internet was just a mysterious far away land. 

One thing I loved about strategy guides were the detailed maps they laid out. I have a pretty bad sense of direction, even in simulated environments, and having an extra map for games like Silent Hill 2 where every little extra bullet and healing item helps really aided in the experience. 

The guides themselves even had their fair share of additional content you probably wouldn’t see in the game itself. For example, in the Resident Evil 0 guide I own, there’s many pages dedicated to the making of the game, including concept artwork and behind the scenes features. And I can’t forget that most guides would often come with a great poster of the game that you could tear out and hang up, which I did with almost all of the guides I owned. Unfortunately most of the guides I own now have had their posters removed, but the Resident Evil 0 one is still there and I just might have to hang it up one day when I have a large game room to put it in.

Of course, having strategy guides also took away a bit of the challenge from games. If you read them from page to page as you were playing along, it kind of felt like the game was being played for you, and that sort of ruined the experience a bit. I remember receiving one for Banjo-Tooie with the game for Christmas, and upon beating the game I felt a bit like the strategy guide took away a lot of the fun. I suppose it depended on the game you were playing, but from then on I would only use them sparingly when I was in desperate need of assistance.

Now, I haven’t played very many modern games for any of the newest generation of consoles (not owning any of them has something to do with that), but I feel like pretty much all guides have been rendered useless, even those posted on the internet. With the abundance of YouTube playthrough videos and just the general fact that most games are self-explanatory enough and don’t offer much extra content besides DLCs or whatever, having a strategy guide would kind of seem like a moot point. It’s a little sad to see the world you grew up with change so rapidly, and if you’re a Luddite like me it’s hard to let go of the past. But that’s part of the reason I started collecting guides in the first place- to keep the spirit of the old days alive for future generations, reminding old and new gamers alike of what things were like in the halcyon days of gaming.

Game Of The Week: Pikmin 2

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today I’m taking a look at a great sequel to a great game, one of the best for the Nintendo Gamecube and one I love to start back up every now and then: Pikmin 2. I love both games in different ways and it’s hard for me to choose which one I like better, but I’ve decided to a do a review of Pikmin 2 because there’s a bit more for me to talk about when discussing it. So let’s get small and dive into the grass as we take a look at Pikmin 2.

 Released in 2004 for the Gamecube, Pikmin 2 did exactly what any good sequel should do: keep the core gameplay that made the original great intact while improving and expanding the universe created by the first game. The story picks up right where the first left off, with the protagonist Captain Olimar returning home from the alien planet where he crash landed in the first game. However, his triumphant return is short-lived when he discovers that in his absence, the freight company he works for has gone bankrupt and if its massive debt isn’t paid back soon, he’ll be out of a job. The boss of his company is at a loss for what to do- that is, until he discovers that a small object brought back from the alien planet by Olimar is extremely valuable, and that more treasures are there waiting to be collected. In order to save his company and his job, Olimar then travels back to the planet with his fellow employee Louie in search of more treasures.

This is where the primary addition to gameplay in the second game comes in- with the two playable characters of Olimar and Louie, you’ll be able to switch between the two and divide up your Pikmin squads around each of the levels. This pushes multitasking even further than in the first game, as now you’ll be able to simultaneously work on accomplishing different goals around the map by controlling two characters. There are also certain bosses that take advantage of this switching system- for example the toady bloyster boss, which you’ll have to distract using one character and launch Pikmin at from behind with another. It’s a very intricate system which allows you to tackle multiple tasks on completely different sides of the map while maintaining a greater level of control than the first game allowed. Another major difference between the first and second games is the introduction of “caves” throughout each of the maps, which are multilayered underground voids in which both the layouts and enemy/treasure placements are completely randomized. At the final floor of nearly all of the caves is a boss fight in which you’ll have to do battle with a massive enemy which will yield a special item upon being defeated. These items are mostly upgrades to Olimar & Louie’s suits that make the gameplay a little easier (for example, being impervious to fire, a larger whistle range to corral Pikmin, etc). There are four caves per map, with the exception of the last map in which there are only three, for a total of 15 in the whole game. Unlike above ground, when inside of a cave time does not pass, allowing for exploration of a cave without the urgency of moving quickly before a day ends.

Being able to split up your squads between two playable characters exponentially changes the multitasking dynamic of the game.

Speaking of urgency, there is no overarching “time limit” as there was in the first game. In the first game the player has 30 days to recover all of the ship parts before the game ends, whereas in the second game, there’s an unlimited amount of days to explore and collect all of the treasures. The second game doubles down on enemies, adding many new types that present a multitude of different threats to your Pikmin squad. There are a few enemies from the first game that don’t return, but the myriad of new ones makes up for that fact nicely. In addition to the enemies, two new Pikmin types join the ranks of the reds, blues and yellows: purple and white Pikmin. Purple Pikmin are slower than molasses, but their massive weight allows them to briefly stun enemies when thrown, making them extremely useful in combat. Also, they can carry ten times their own weight, allowing just one of them the lifting capacity of ten other Pikmin. By contrast, white Pikmin are small and swift, rapidly following behind you and carrying items. They are immune to poison and can dig up underground objects that other Pikmin can’t see. Additionally, they deal substantial damage to enemies if eaten. Both of these new types are very useful and valuable to have throughout the game, but there’s a major hitch- they can only be spawned in caves by throwing red, blue or yellow Pikmin into their respective candypop flowers and not by the traditional means of transporting dead enemies or pellets to the onions. These flowers only spawn a maximum of five Pikmin, meaning that you’ll have to very slowly build up a squad over the course of the game. However, the usefulness of both types for different tasks makes it very much worth the time and effort to do so.

It sucks that you aren't able to spawn purple & white Pikmin as quickly as the others, but it's certainly worth it to take the extra time to do so.

Lastly, there’s the introduction of items which aid in your adventure. I already mentioned the special items you’ll receive from defeating bosses, but there are two others that are very useful to collect as you progress- spicy and bitter berries, which can be used to create spicy and bitter spray, respectively. By pressing up or down on the D-pad, you’ll use one of these sprays which greatly helps in combating enemies; spicy spray causes your Pikmin squad to become temporarily enhanced, making them move and attack faster, while bitter spray briefly freezes enemies allowing your squad to attack them without being counterattacked. You’ll find the berries to make both types scattered in flowers around the maps, and by bringing five berries back to your ship you’ll be able to make one spray. 

By far, the biggest aspect that sets this game apart from the first is the cave system, which is also where my biggest critique is. I do like the randomization aspect, as the challenge always slightly differs every time you enter a different level of the cave. Also, I like that time doesn’t pass in the caves, so you have an unlimited ability to explore and strategize. However, the thing I didn’t enjoy about the cave system in comparison to the first game is that spending time in the caves makes up a majority of the game. Because of this, there’s a noticeable lack of emphasis on above ground exploring and puzzle solving, where you’ll be working against the clock to find items, break down barriers, build bridges, etc. until the day ends. Also, another above ground aspect lost by spending most of the game in the caves is the ability to sprout new Pikmin from dead enemies. Since the onions don’t follow you into the caves, you lose a lot of the satisfaction from defeating enemies and then using their carcasses to create new Pikmin, which is one of the most fun things about the first game and being above ground in the second. And lastly, the caves really don’t present much of a challenge at all unless you really act on an “honors system” for yourself, so to speak. Every time you enter a new sublevel of the cave, the game automatically saves. I’m not sure if there’s some practical reason for this, or if this feature can be manually shut off for that matter (honestly, I’ve never thought of checking until writing this sentence), but it happens every single time you finish a cave level and then move on to the next. Because of this, if something horrific happens and half your squad gets obliterated by an enemy that dropped in while you weren’t paying attention, you can simply reset the game and start over in that level like nothing ever happened. Like I said, you can impose an honors system on yourself and not do this if you have the discipline to do so, but more often than not I just got so annoyed at losing a ton of my hard earned purple Pikmin because a bomb rock exploded near them while I was off on the other side of the cave that I’d jump up and do a reset out of anger. I know they were trying to put a little less pressure on the player than in the first game, but I think this kills a lot of the challenge in making it through the caves, especially in the later ones when things start getting extremely difficult.

It's kind of like using save states in the caves, if you think about it.

Despite these things, the caves are really my only gripe with the game. I love the diversity of enemies new and old, plus the in-depth enemy analysis in the “Pikelopedia” which appeals to both my inner biologist and nerd at the same time. The new stage hazards of poison and electricity are very cool, as well as the enemies that utilize both, along with fire and water too. The game throws multiple hazards at you at once and you have to come up with some intricate strategies to deal with them. For example, there’s one part of the game where an enemy called the fiery bulblax (as the name implies, it’s on fire) is holding a treasure and sitting across a lake in a little enclave. There’s no other way around and only blue Pikmin can cross the lake, but they can’t attack the beast without being incinerated if they touch it. So, you’ll have to quickly wake it up and retreat into the lake, hoping it will follow you into the water and have its flames doused, at which point you can attack it. The game throws multiple hazards like that at you all throughout the game, and I like the creativity implemented there.

This guy takes a bit of fanagaling to take down, and it's just one instance of the game putting multiple obstacles in your way to complete a goal.

As in the first game, the graphics and music are both great. The music amps up in tension as enemies attack and then slows down peacefully when there’s no threats. The enemies are designed quite nicely and really give you a sense of accomplishment when you take down the massive, ugly boss enemies. Besides the main game, there’s also plenty of time to be spent in challenge mode, in which you’ll have to collect a certain amount of items within a time limit while dodging enemies and other obstacles.

All in all, Pikmin 2 is a great sequel and a worthy successor to the first game. It does lack some aspects that make the first game a lot of fun, so it’s kind of hard for me to choose which one I like better. I usually keep them separate in my mind and enjoy them both equally for their own reasons. Now I just need to get my hands on a Wii U so I can check out the third one…but that will be another story for another time. For now, so long and be careful where you step in your backyard, you never know what’s crawling around in the grass beneath you.

Game Of The Week: Ghostbusters II (NES)

Hello again dear readers and welcome to this week’s edition of game of the week. Today I’ll be talking about a near and dear gem from my childhood on the good old Nintendo Entertainment System. It might not be a classic, but it has a special place in my heart as one of the very first games I ever remember playing and enjoying as a young child. Yes, I’m talking about Ghostbusters II on NES.

Released in 1990, I have distinct memories of picking this game out at Toys R’ Us and proceeding to play the hell out of it as soon as I got home. It’s a simple, average game that doesn’t stand out too much from the crowd, but it’s one of my favorites due entirely to the nostalgia factor I get from playing it. Also, it’s worth mentioning that I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Ghostbusters. It was just my childhood thing. I mean, I’m one of those people with a full scale proton pack replica and costume that I break out every Halloween. Anyway, in the 26 years that have passed I still had never beaten this game myself, so after all this time I set out to do just that and along the way I took a more critical look at it. And what perfect timing, as the folks down at Cinemasssacre just recently did a video on this very game (and, not to mention, the imminent release of the Ghostbusters “reboot” in a few weeks which I have many mixed feelings about, but I digress).

So for the starters, the previous Ghostbusters game for the NES that was based on the first movie was…well…not very good at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s probably one of the worst games in the entire NES library (official, anyway). At any rate, there was pretty much nowhere to go but up after that train wreck, and Ghostbusters II certainly makes improvements in just about every category. It has a decent mixture of side-scrolling stages ala Contra, stages of driving and dodging obstacles, and stages of blasting away enemies falling from the sky using the Statue of Liberty reminiscent of games like Space Invaders. Not extremely diverse, but again, definitely an upgrade over the first game. The graphics are pretty nice. Nothing supreme or anything, but good enough for the kind of game it is. I particularly like the little in-between stages graphics, especially the one for the Statue of Liberty stage.

 So should I start using the NES advantage here or...?

In the side-scrolling stages, you’ll take control of one of the four Ghostbusters (who all play exactly the same and even have identical sprites, with the exception of Winston) and simply navigate a stage from right to left. These are the primary stages of the game, with the driving and Statue of Liberty stages in between. It’s interesting that none of the Ghostbusters use their signature ghost-catching weapons, the proton packs, at any point in this game; instead, they all use the slime blowers (which, now I’m going to get really nerdy here, there were only two of in the movie). Not really that big a deal, just an interesting choice. Plus, it does make sense when you consider the context that they were really pushing the “slime” aspect in the second movie to the max (much to the chagrin of Bill Murray, apparently). In fact, now that I think it about it, it wasn’t just Ghostbusters…slime itself was EVERYWHERE in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I think it probably started with Ghostbusters, but there was just this really big deal about slime back then. But now I’m getting off topic here.

Anyway, the levels each have the extremely simple objective of getting to the end of the stage without dying. You’ll have to dodge a variety of ghosts and other things like severed heads and hands, spiders, and..uh, random objects. Yeah, sometimes you just get pelted with random things that come flying in from off screen, but I’ll discuss that in more detail later. Shooting slime destroys the ghosts in one hit, but the other things will have to be trapped. By pressing the select button, you’ll drop a ghost trap that sucks in anything directly above it, including ghosts and Ghostbusters logos. Yeah, there are a lot of those in this game. They come flying in at the top of screen, and you’ll gain one every time you hit one with slime or suck one into a trap. Collect 20 and you get an extra life. I always found it kind of funny that you’re collecting logos to gain lives…kind of like if Mario was collecting Nintendo logos instead of coins. Anyway, just run to the left, dodge the ghosts, collect logos, and you’re through the stage. However, one pretty annoying thing about this is the spider that crawls along behind you all through the stage. Yeah, for some reason the developers decided that a simple time limit wasn’t quite enough and put in a little invulnerable spider that slowly crawls behind you as you progress in the stage. Most of the time you probably won’t even notice it, but if you stand still too long it will catch up with you and instantly kill you if you touch it. I guess they were trying to make the game a bit more difficult but it’s mostly just annoying, especially during the last stages of the game that get quite difficult and you’re just trying to take it nice and slow.

 That little spider always annoyed the crap out of me. I ain't afraid of no ghosts, but spiders, that's another story.

The stages are all pretty short and sweet and follow the story arc of the movie quite nicely. After the first stage at the river of slime, you’re at the first of the two driving stages. It’s much the same as before- just move up and down, dodge ghosts and other hazards. You can also collect more logos and other powerups such as invincibility and a better slime blaster. The most difficult parts about these stages are the jumps. I don’t know who’s been paying attention to the roads in New York City for a living, but it seems that huge chasms have opened up in the middle of the street (perhaps a bigger problem than ghosts?), and you have to “jump” over them in order to proceed. Yeah, the Ecto-1A jumps, just go with it. But you won’t be able to make it simply by jumping- no, you have to drive over little arrows that serve as speed boosters to successfully clear the ditches. It’s not too bad in the first level, I think there’s only two or three jumps to make. However, in the second driving stage, there will be areas of two consecutive jumps in a row, and if your timing and placement isn’t precise on hitting the arrow and jumping, you’re going down. Also, another annoying aspect is that if you fall into the hole, you’ll lose a life AND have to start the stage over again from the beginning. This doesn’t happen if you get hit by a ghost and lose a life, as you’ll be able to start up again right where you died.

 The jumps in the driving stages, especially ones like this one pictured, are really difficult until you've practiced enough that you can get the hang of them. I also like how it says "Jump!!" at the bottom of the screen, as if you wouldn't know what to do when confronted with a giant hole.

Next up is another side scrolling stage in the courthouse (which is interesting that you play as Winston in this stage since he wasn’t in that scene. Well, actually he was briefly in the beginning of it, but then disappears later on when the Scolari brothers appear. Where did he go, anyway? Damn it, I’m getting sidetracked again). In this stage, big ghosts start to appear- ghosts that can't be blasted and can only be trapped. This is followed by the second driving stage, and after that comes another side scrolling stage in the abandoned subway. Then, it's onto something quite different- in the next stage, you’ll control the Statue of Liberty (with an NES advantage controller, perhaps? I just love the irony here) and have to blast away ghosts that fall from the sky while dodging projectiles. This is quite different from the previous stages, as the stage scrolls automatically while you move the Statue left and right on the screen. There’s a few powerups to grab in this stage- one that lets you shoot at an angle as opposed to just straight up, one that launches a bomb that destroys all the ghosts on screen, and one that grants you brief invincibility. There are technically two of these stages, but they both play the same and really the only things that change are the backgrounds and the patterns of the ghosts.

 As as kid, I assumed that the big ghosts that appear in the courtroom stage were supposed to be the Scolari brothers.

Once you complete the Liberty stages, you’ll be at the last section of the game- four different stages in the museum in which you’ll have to guide each of the four Ghostbusters to the end where Vigo the Carpathian waits for you in his painting. I mean, he literally waits there and doesn’t even do anything, but I’ll touch on that more in a moment. The four stages all look the same, but enemy placements are different and gradually increase in difficulty. By the time you get to the last one, you’ll really start getting frustrated by the level design. As I mentioned earlier, some enemies just come flying in from off screen with little time for you to react. These enemies will bounce along the floor in different patterns, and the best strategy is to quickly run in the opposite direction and drop a trap that they’ll get sucked into. However, when you have a bunch of slimers flying above you and the spider inching its way toward you to the right, this isn’t always easy to do and you might end up getting hit and losing a life. And that’s another thing- the one hit deaths are kind of annoying. The game is pretty generous with the opportunity to earn extra lives, but maybe two or three hits before death would’ve been nice. And lastly, the most annoying part of the last four levels is the fact that if you lose all your lives and have to continue, you need to start all the way back at your first Ghostbuster again. So, say you get to the fourth and final stage and then lose all of your lives, you'll need to go back to the first and do all four all over again. It’s far from impossible, but this part had me repeatedly starting over again and was the major reason why I could never complete the game. However, I refused to give up and powered through, eventually conquering the four stages and…that’s it. Yeah, there’s no final boss or anything, the game just ends with a short scene where the Ghostbusters shoot Vigo's painting with slime and….that’s it. A final boss challenge would’ve been better, but at the same time, I’m just happy I finally put this 26-year vendetta to rest.

 Only a Carpathian would come back to life now and choose New...wait, the game's over? That's it?

Overall, Ghostbusters II might have been an inferior movie (certainly not a bad movie, as some people on the internet like to claim), but it definitely was a superior game. And interestingly, there was an even better Ghostbusters II game called “New Ghostbusters II” that never made it to America and was only released in Europe and Japan. I would’ve loved that one as a kid for sure, and maybe I’ll get my hands on it one day to give it a proper review too. But for now, Ghostbusters II on NES, it ain’t all that bad and still manages to bring me back to my early childhood every time I pop it in. So until next time: two in the box, ready to go, we be fast and they be slow.