Webhead123

I've had my eye on this game for a while and think I'd probably like it. Just too many other things on my plate. I hope to get around to it eventually.

I've never played the PC version of the original. I did play a little bit of Sim City 2000 but didn't really get sucked into it.

I've played a wee bit of the SNES port of Sim City and that was a fun diversion on rare occasion. Still, I never got hooked by city-builders. The Civilization series was much more my style and mostly the later entries at that.

1 hour ago, RH said:

This may not seem like much, but from further observation of the fathers of that generation, many of these men came back hardened and PTSD left them afraid of not having hard, well behaved kids.  Why?  Because when you go to war, your best chance of survival is actually following orders...

...Anyway, I quoted you guys because C. S. Lewis went to war in WWI.  It was a different time, but he was one of the few who fought the trauma to run towards cynicism that produces a rigidity of adulthood.  He wasn't a kid and was a very productive and prosperous man.  Nevertheless, he enjoyed "childish things" because he didn't want to let go of joy.

Not to get too "psychoanalytical" or anything, but whenever I think about the overall character of my father, I think what an interesting combination of features must be at work to shape him into what he was. He was the youngest of six siblings and thus had to be both thick-skinned and strong-willed to make his mark. As a result, he became a pretty rowdy, rebellious youth (which got him into plenty of trouble) but ended up in military service at only 17, which seemed to hone that rough-and-tumble disposition into something more disciplined. But what's interesting is that he never lost his sense of humor or general attitude that life should be joyful. He was a hard worker and very much believed that there was a time for seriousness and a time for silliness but each were important to him. He was one of the biggest practical jokers in the family and never missed a chance to tell a groan-worthy joke. He was a man that could be deadly serious when it was time to get something done but his parenting style, though always emphasizing respect, focus and determination, never really came across as overly "strict" or "stifling". In short, he wanted his children to understand the value of hard work and discipline but didn't want them to lose their sense of individuality.

1 hour ago, mbd39 said:

Swamp Thing made by the same people who did all the Simpsons games and Ghostbusters II on the NES. It's my understanding that most of these have the same lousy control issues.

Yeah, the first time I booted up Swamp Thing, I noticed something familiar about the jumping mechanics and just the overall (crappy) feel of the controls. I believe it was pointed out on some random YT video I was watching that it used the same basic engine as The Simpsons games and then it clicked for me.

5 hours ago, Gloves said:

Prior to our generation, people mostly stopped playing with toys when they grew up. 

One of C.S. Lewis' more famous quotes and one that always spoke to me was:

"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

My parents were not really into video games, with a few minor exceptions.

My father has long said that one of the only video games he ever really played, and certainly the only one that he fully enjoyed, was River Raid on the Atari. He was a Navy man that served in Vietnam and there may have been something visceral about that game that spoke to him. No other video game before or since seemed to capture his imagination and even including River Raid, I doubt he's played more than an hour or two of video games in his life.

My mother, who eventually pursued computer science as a career, was a little more receptive to playing video games, although she still didn't play a ton of them. Other than a few rounds of random Atari games like Pac-Man or Centipede, she mostly played Tetris on a Macintosh computer she bought in the late 80's and would occasionally play some Dr. Mario on the family NES. Occasionally, she would humor me by playing a two-player game for a few minutes but that was the extent of it.

Other than that, I was sort of the resident video game nerd of the family. My uncle passed his NES and small handful of games on to me as a birthday present. It was he and his wife that took me on a road trip in 1990 where we went to Disney Land before also attending Nintendo PowerFest. That was such an amazing treat. But other than a passing interest, my uncle wasn't much of a gamer, either.

4 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

I'd have to agree, honestly.

In its defense, Swamp Thing has an awesome intro. I remember getting a CIB copy of Swamp Thing in like, 1999. I definitely lost it and have no idea where it went; I know it's worth a penny or two now!

Oh yeah, Swamp Thing has a kind of charm to it that makes it all the more heart breaking as that charm starts slowly slipping away and the frustration all comes boiling to the surface. What a great-idea-turned-horrible-missed-opportunity.

13 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

This is a 3/10 game.

That's saying a lot from someone with the balls to use the Swamp Thing sprite as their avatar, too.

You know, I've never really thought about it before but...I think Swamp Thing and Jekyll & Hyde might be comparable experiences in some respects. They both feature incredibly sluggish protagonists with impotent attacks. Frustrating and abusive enemy and level design. Questionable hit-detection.

I haven't spent as much time with Swamp Thing as Jekyll & Hyde but I wonder, putting them head-to-head, which I would find less terrible given a fair shake.

I documented my experience finishing Jekyll & Hyde on the old NA site. Sadly, I didn't keep a separate record of my thoughts. I will say that I came away from the game with a much more positive outlook than I expected to. I recognized that the game isn't fundamentally very "good", in terms of general playability or fun factor...but making a serious effort to get through it did reveal that it does have its charms. In other words, the game became kind of a guilty pleasure and fun in spite of its many flaws and frustrations.

As a result, I found it surprisingly difficult to give this game a solid rating, as it is a tug-of-war of positive and negative qualities. For most people and under most circumstances, this game probably doesn't deserve any score higher than a 3 or 4. I was tempted to give it a 5 overall but I recognize that might be slightly too generous considering my personal journey. So, I docked it to a "4" due to the simple fact that most of the experience is tedious, frustrating and unfair.

I still like it, though, and think it's far, FAR from the worst the NES library has to offer.

3 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

It is bananas that people don't like collecting Atari games.

Atari box covers were spectacular. Among the posters decorating the walls of my game room, seven of them are Atari covers.

3 hours ago, RH said:

It might not have made a game good for a review, but if you have a killer box art, there was a reasonable chance you'd sell more than a few copies of your game.

Exactly right. Precisely because graphics capabilities were so limited, putting evocative art on the game's cover (and, occasionally, in the manual) was the publisher's way to spark the customer's imagination. Sure, they might just be differently-colored pixels on-screen, but with the right cover, you could convince people that those pixels were space ships or robots, or tanks, or wizards..

On 3/19/2024 at 8:31 PM, RH said:

The games don’t matter.  Everyone needs to be given an Atari 2600 and a bag of commons and told that’s all they can play for three months.

I unironically agree. Moreso than any other era, I think the Atari age represents an experience unique to all others. Before graphics. Before music. Before storytelling and world-building. Raw gameplay and player imagination. Games couldn't hide behind gimmicks, fancy systems or flowery writing. It was just you, a joystick and a high score.

9 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

I'm not sure Activision Blizzard would ever deliver the game anyone actually wants when they make the majority of their money from mobile game microtransactions, season passes, etc. I know Starcraft 2 is the best RTS I'll ever get because I can't imagine a modern Starcraft 3 ever comes out in a "just buy the game and have it" format.

It's an honest tragedy to witness just how far Blizzard has fallen since the acquisition by Activision. To be fair, almost none of the core minds from "old" Blizzard are still there anymore and all of their games have ridden the greed-train so long that they are almost unrecognizable. Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, WoW, Overwatch...these guys used to rule the world.

I played quite a bit of Warcraft II (and even more Starcraft) but I've never played Warcraft III and I probably never will. The RTS genre just doesn't hit with me anymore and I vastly prefer turn-based strategy games. In fact, I was initially really excited for Dune: Spice Wars until I learned that it was an RTS. I'll probably never play that game either, unfortunately.

I really can't weigh in meaningfully on any of these as I've not spent more than a couple minutes on any one of them. But from what I know of them, what little I've played and the conversations I've had with a friend of mine, the ones that I'll probably get the most out of would be Baba is You and Obra Dinn. The Witness is a genre of game that I haven't been terribly impressed by and Tunic seems like territory that I've tread many times over already (and the cutesy animal aesthetic is fine but doesn't do anything for me).

There's just no way I can give this less than a 10. Call it nostalgia if you want to but this is honestly one of my favorite games of all time and so stupidly replayable. Still my favorite mainline Mario game.

I really wanted to like Sekiro and gave it more than a few fair shakes. In the end, it felt too punishing for me in my current stage of life and I just don't think my skill level and patience were up to the demands required to feel like I was making progress. Keep in mind, I'm very hyper-critical of the "Souls-like" genre on the whole and if I like a Souls-like game, it's in spite of its difficulty. I appreciate challenge in games. I even don't mind replaying portions of a game to "master" it, to an extent. I remember how beating Ninja Gaiden on X-Box felt like one of the greatest accomplishments ever. But that was...damn...18 years ago and these days, games have to give me a reason to want to come back to them, either by rewarding my effort or by at least acknowledging what it demands of the player. Sekiro has a very fascinating world and setting...but I couldn't see much of it because it kept putting up walls for me to beat my head against until my vision was blurry and my head was hurting.

Take all that with a grain of salt or two.

This is a good example of a quality early title for the Genesis. That is to say, it has lots of great qualities...and only suffers because it was an early release. It's not exactly pushing the hardware in any way but the play control is good, the graphics and music are quite excellent (again, for an early title) and it's one example of licensed games done right. It's fairly slow-paced for some and I get that. It's also pretty dang easy. But it's still great. I struggled between a 7 and 8 but I think it's not quite up to the task of the top-tier.

So, 7 out of 10 it is.

Well...here we are.

My personal nostalgia for Sonic 2 is stronger than for Gunstar Heroes but setting that aside and trying to be at least slightly objective, I think Gunstar is just an overall better game. I still love and appreciate Sonic 2 but I don't think it would even rank in my top 10 Genesis titles, let alone meet my standards for best game on the console.

Next question: When are we doing this for the Super Nintendo? 

I give it a Ghostly Space-Clown mixing Whiskey Sours out of 10. Would recommend.

It's no NBA Jam but it's got the same spirit. This, Tecmo Bowl and Mutant League Football are pretty much the only football (both kinds) games I'll bother playing.

I'm feeling generous and nostalgic, so I'll give it an 8/10.

Some tough choices, here. I really like the Genesis Ghouls 'N Ghosts but putting it up against Gunstar Heroes...

Same could be said for all of these matchups, really. In my opinion, Sonic 2 is the weakest on the list but even that's still a great game. Goes to show how strong the library really was.

Played the first Crash (original and remaster) but never any of the sequels or spin-offs. The first game was fine enough as an early 3D platformer but didn't exactly blow me away. I own the N-sane Trilogy, so I guess that gives me an excuse to fire up Crash 2 at some point but it's not truly a priority for me.

Shaun!

Never played it/10

Revenge of Shinobi