Spring Cleaning Time

Hi there!  Alana here J  It’s finally time for my new post.  This one isn’t very long but I’m trying to get my game collection in order and I’ve having a couple issues so I thought I would get your opinion on it.

Today I am going to talk about a problem I’m sure a lot of game collectors have, how to organize your games.  The biggest problem I am having is with my NES and Famicom games.

NES games seem like they should be really simple, they have the nice end labels with the name clearly displayed.  They are all totally flat and are easily stackable.  The issues arise when you are trying to put them in order.  If you try alphabetical it’s fine until you get to the letter T.  There are so many games starting with the word The, so do you include it as the first word in the title or do you ignore it and use the rest of the title? ie. The Last Ninja vs Last Ninja.

What if you have multiple titles in the same series of games.  An example that comes to mind is Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link, for me I would put them together but it kind of messes up the alphabetical order.   Plus if you include the Wisdom Tree games or the Tengen games then you don’t have end labels.

Now working with Famicom games you have a different problem.  Not all of the games have end labels so when you stack them you don’t know which game they are, plus you don’t have just play grey carts you have a multitude of colors, so do you group them according to color or just randomly stack them? Maybe I should make my own end labels for the games that don’t have any.  Plus a few of the companies have different shaped cartridges so that makes a bit of a mess too.

Thenn the N64 games, that's just a whole other issue...

Not that this is super essential but it’s a problem that’s been bugging me as I’m trying to display everything in the “correct” way.  How do you guys do it?  Have any suggestions?

Bombslinger on the Xbox One

Normally the only games I'm playing are my retro ones, but every once in a while I will try out something on Xbox One.  When I was asked if I would be willing to review this game after seeing the screenshots I knew that I had to give it a chance!  Cool pixel graphics with a neat cell shaded look to them and game play that looked like the Bomberman series of games it was totally up my alley.  Plus seriously who doesn't love the wild west and cowboys?  The mix of bomberman and cowboys seemed intriguing and I was wondering how well it would work...

I am happy to say very well!  This game is so much fun!  If you are familiar with the Bomberman games you know how you have to use your bombs to clear blocks in the level and to defeat your enemies.  But at the same time you have to make sure you get out of the way of the bomb blast or you are done.  It's very similar here but you are clearing out fields of corn and other debris.  In the one player Adventure Mode, instead of clearing individual levels you have a large map to go through to get items you need, get keys to open doors and defeat enemies and bosses.  During the levels as you beat enemies you will be able to level up your character and pick different attributes to level up like speed, amount of bombs and how powerful they are.  Speed if definitely something you are going to want to have because besides normal enemies in the level there are very angry rams who will charge at you through the level so you need to make sure you can move fast!

When you start the Adventure mode you see wanted posters for the McMean's Band of robbers.  There's a group photo of the bandits then all of a sudden a woman shows up in the photo beside McMean, the photo it ripped taking McMean and her out of the picture.  We see a picture of the two of them infront of the McMean Ranch when a knife is put into it.  Someone in the gang is not happy that the leader has a wife or girlfriend!  We see the house on the McMean Ranch engulfed in flames.  McMean runs inside and brings out the lifeless body of his wife, clearly McMean wants revenge!
One of the really different things is when you start the game you have a selection of items you can choose from to bring with you as your Load Out.  Each of these items changes one of your stats, so you have to be sure to choose wisely.   You have a choice of 3 but in totally there are 32 different items you can unlock!

Wife's Perfume ups your spirit meter, your spirit meter is how much you can use items like the shot gun

Wife's Memento (looks like a photo) says not even death will keep you from avenging her, so if you die you get a chance to use that and come back to life

Wife's Locket - her heart will always be with you - adds another heart to your health

You start the game at the McMean's Ranch at your wife's grave and the remains of the farmhouse.  You have a map at the top right of the screen to show you where you have been and mark things you come across like locked gates, bosses and stores. You can easily see how much gold and keys that you have.  On  you will see your hearts/health at the upper left.  The nice thing is instead of dying after getting hit one time, depending on your lock out item you could start off with 4 hearts.  One thing I will warn you about is the bombs explode a lot faster than you expect! So as soon as you put down a bomb start running lol.  You will see I die a lot in my game play video learning this the hard way.  Then the other thing is if you see a cute little ram make sure you aren't in it's way, it will try to take you out, and stalks of corn in it's way will not stop it. He even runs through the barrels of explosion setting off a huge blast so make sure you can take cover behind a rock and sneak out to put bombs down to defeat it.  I got killed a few times from him.

In the levels when you take out the random bad guys (like old farmers with pitchforks and in their underwear or longjohns?) you will get gold and there are boxes and treasure chests to open up.  Inside you will find some cool items like a Moonshine Bomb, Snake Oils, Bandaids and Shotguns.  The controls in the game are really good and when you pick  one up you can easily assign it to the X or B button to easily access it when you need it.  One of the really neat things that they did with the game is if you die, you start back at the McMean ranch but just because you played before and know where to go doesn't matter because each screen is totally random and the map is different.  So this instantly gives the game a lot of replay value because it's never exactly the same!

When you get to the boss you challenge him to a duel and you battle it out in a more traditional map. You start learning more about the main character and why his posse turned on him, the story is really interesting and made me want to learn more about what happened.

Now if you want to switch things up and play multiplayer you definitely have to check out the Battle Mode! Besides having 12 different stages to choose from there are two different modes to choose from Last Man Standing which is like a more traditional Bomberman game, or if you haven't played that before all 4 characters start at a different corner of the map and try to blow up the obstacles in the way and try to take eachother out.  The other mode is Last Man Standing.  This level has a lot of crazy new items to use in battle like the Tumbleweeder, Atomic Bombs, Shotguns, Bear Traps and Moonshine Bombs.  I love how when you pick up an item it will show the name of it so you know what it is.  If you just had to go off of the items icons alone it might be tricky to know what you got. When Geronimo pops up on the screen you have to watch out cause blocks will fall from the sky.  Whoever has the most kills at the end of the round is the winner.  You can set the amount of time, the amount of kills and the amount of rounds.

The last thing to talk about is the music.  It definitely sounds like it's from and old western movie and isn't annoying or one of those songs you just can't stand.  The sound effects are really good with the explosions, guys grunting as they die and the shotguns going off.  My only gripe is when you pick up some of the items like the shotgun or the Jumpin Jack item your character says "Yee Haw!!" and in battle mode when people are running around constantly picking up stuff the "Yee Haw" gets kind of irritating.

Overall I highly recommend this game! I've really enjoyed playing it and I can't wait to play more and get through the game to see what happens with the characters.  If you love classic games like Bomberman or just fun multiplayer games, especially local multiplayer this is definitely a fun one to pick up!

Check out my gameplay video from the Adventure mode here, or if you want to see the Multiplayer just click here.  While you are there be sure to subscribe and if you have any questions or comments on the game like what you thought of it let me know! 

Game Review - Gradius (NES)

I’m a huge NES fan, especially platformers and shoot ‘em ups!  If you’ve ever played a Gradius game, you already know that the series is one of the best shoot ‘em up (shmup) series out there!  It also has the distinction of being one of the most difficult too.

Gradius was one of the first shmups to appear on the NES.  As such Gradius has inspired many sidescrolling space shooters to come after it.  Even though it was one of the first it still has a lot of unique features that make it fun to play today!  Gradius was one of the first Konami arcade shooters that were ported to the NES and Famicom in 1986.  

Obviously the home console version was more basic than the arcade, but it still was a very well done port unlike a game like Dragon's Lair!  It is also the first game to implement the legendary Konami code!

GRAPHICS: 8/10

Considering Gradius came out in 1986, it has nice looking graphics.  Since the game takes place in space the backgrounds are largely just black, but this works really well with all the brightly coloured enemies, and the level bosses.  If an enemy shoots at you it is easy to see the bullet which is nice especially compared to a games like Transformers No Convoy on the Famicom where the background has white mountains and white bullets, good luck avoiding anything!  Even with the background being black you still get to see Easter Island like Moai heads, trees, volcanoes and fortresses too, so there is definitely a huge variety in levels.  Plus with bosses that take up half the screen it looks pretty impressive for its time.

SOUND: 7.5/10

The music in Gradius is really catchy, plus there is a huge variety.  It's not the same song throughout the whole level.  Like take level 1 for example you start with one song that changes as soon as you hit the part with the volcanoes then changes again when you are fighting the boss.  That's a pretty good variety for a classic NES game!  In Japan the music is so popular it’s even played by orchestras there too!  

Sound effects wise every weapon sounds different.  The regular shots sound different than the lasers do, which is nice it’s not just "pew pew" for everything.  The explosions aren't exactly huge surround sound type sound effects but it's definitely not bad considering the NES uses just the RF switch or just the one audio out.

CONTROLS: 8/10

The basic controls of left, right, up, down, and shoot work very well and are really responsive.  But make sure you keep in mind that the ship will seem really slow and almost unresponsive at first until you get the upgrades and improve your speed.  Once you get 2 or 3 the ship will go along at a really good speed but make sure you don't power it up too much or you will go way to fast, and with no way to slow down you will crash :p  

You start the game off having to select what weapons you want to choose from.  Once the level starts, you may find Vic Viper's ship is pretty clunky, you have just the basic weapon. If you look at the bottom of the screen there is a kind of weapons bar (for lack of a better term) with the weapons you chose in the beginning.  As you collect the red power ups, a weapon name will be highlighted. Once the weapon you want is highlighted just hit the B button and you will get that power up.  The more items you collect the better the power up you can redeem them for.  Keep in mind you can't take the double shot and the laser at the same time, it's one or the other.  It might take a little bit of experimentation to figure out what weapons work best for you but it's fun going through all the different choices.

Though remember if you die you continue with zero powerups so you will have to collect everything again.  So even if you think to use the Konami code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start) you will only have the items until you die and you can only use it once per game so use it wisely.  Also make sure when you get all the power ups like the shield etc you don't get cocky and act like you are invincible cause you will die. Trust me, I did this a lot!  

It really sucks when you die after the middle of the stage since you will come back pretty weak and the enemies there aren't as plentiful as in the beginning of the levels so you will have to be extra careful to make it through.

One of the bad things is there is a lot of slowdown once the screen becomes cluttered with enemies.  There are moments too here the hit detection is just a little bit off.  You can get close to the one mountain to get your one up but that's the only time I found where you can get away with this and not crash into the object and die.  Once you play a little while you will get used to the controls and what you can and can't do, then you will be good to go.

CHALLENGE 9/10

Gradius definitely offers a challenge.  I haven't been able to beat it yet but I'm sure after playing it for a while you would be able to get really good at it and master it.  Especially if you can get your ship totally decked out with power ups and you are very careful you could almost be invincible.  Keep in mind though even with a shield you can still be killed when you are hit from behind! There are times where you get really frustrated, but if you keep trying and memorizing the level you are sure to beat it eventually.  For me it's a game I can see myself constantly going back to just to challenge myself to see if I can beat it without using the Konami code and see if I can improve my completion time.

BOTTOM LINE 8/10

Gradius is totally worth playing, even if it's just to see the beginnings of the schmup genre on the NES and Famicom.  I never had this game as a kid so I don't have any nostaligic feelings about it, but I'm a huge fan of the genre and I really enjoy it.  Even though this game is frustrating, it's also amazingly addictive too, once you learn the controls :)

I like how you get to customize the types of power ups available to you, then once you are in the game you can choose which weapon you want to "spend" your collected power ups on.  This option was used in all of the sequels that were released including games on the Famicom and a 3rd that is on the Super Famicom.  If you happen to run out of Gradius games to play, you can also check out Parodius series, which is a parody of Gradius and has a range of characters to choose from like a penguin and octopus.   

So do yourself a favor and check out the Grandfather to all shmups, or if you have played it before, go back and challenge it again and try to beat it without the Konami code J