Brickman

15 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Finally watched it.  I don't think I had seen it, funnily enough.  But you can very clearly see it's inspiration in the world of the Tarantinos (and Roths and Zombies) of the world.

I don't think I need to add it to the collection, but I was entertained.

Probably for the best. It would be expensive if you wanted to add it.

Arrow released a Russ Meyer blu ray collection but it’s OOP now and expensive and the Russ Meyer estate doesn’t seem interested in letting companies release stuff (but they’ll sell you an overpriced DVD version for like $80!)

I hadn’t heard of this one but saw it mentioned in the AAA discussion and added it to my list. Looks great.

Final Fight (SNES)

Brawlers, beat ‘em ups, belt scroller, whatever you want to call them, they’ve never really been my thing. Save for a few, I usually get a bit bored of them or get frustrated with their cheapness.  

I’ve never played a Final Fight game, so I was going in blind. The short of it is, I think it’s an ok slightly above average game.

Firstly, the visuals are nice and the soundtrack is really solid. They have a good beat and tend to match the world you’re in. 

The difficulty curve can be a little intense in this game. At first, you’re breezing along and knocking everyone out like they’re nothing. Then it changes around Stage 3, everyone is stun locking you or hitting way harder. I like difficult games, but I don’t like cheap difficult games. This game tends to lean a bit towards cheap at times. The boss fights aren’t too bad though and each one feels pretty unique. I liked the variety they brought to the game. 

The levels themselves are where I think the game falls short. They just feel so boring to me. The backgrounds are changing but you never really feel like anything is changing overall. Punch punch, jump, kick, grab someone and move again. Yes, this is the aim of these types of games, but I don’t get the same feeling in this game as I do in something like The Simpsons or Turtles in Time. Unfortunately, I just found it to be a slightly above average game. 

6.5/10

2 hours ago, CT said:

Just hearing anecdotally from folks who have visited Japan recently, it sounds like in the big cities there are less deals than there were in the past.  But if you got to smaller towns you may find better prices.

This is pretty much it. Akihabara is essentially a living museum now, the prices are a joke. I was seeing some stuff priced 2 or 3 times eBay. It’s fun to browse and look around the city though.

But I went to a lot of other cities and there were deals to be had. I went to a book off and there was easily a quarter of the 3DS library right there. One Surugaya had a whole aisle of PS2 games, most were like $3-8. 

I thought SimCity 2000 was an ok game but never played the original or any other version. SimCity 2000 I'd probably give a 5/10. I think Civ. is a much better game than the SimCity series.

There were mountains of games available when I was in Japan recently. Most were at decent prices or even really cheap prices, I had to stop buying games because I was running out of room. No idea what this guy is crying about.

The days of hard to find games costing 100-1000yen are long gone, even before the pandemic. 

53 minutes ago, Sumez said:

It's not like I'm not keeping up with movies. It's hard for me to find the time to watch them, but I always keep tabs on what's coming out, and I have a massive list of things I still need to see. Most of them newer than 1999 probably.

But I have literally never heard of this movie before, the title is completely new to me. I'm gonna assume it never had an international theatrical release.

Edit: seems it was shown here

It was pretty big. I don’t live in the US either and it played here. It was also directed by Ben Affleck which made it more famous or infamous depending what you think of the movie.

I’m not really surprised that people haven’t seen it, crime movies aren’t a lot of people’s genre. I’m just more surprised that a lot of people had never heard of it.

The good thing about these debates is that it introduces movies to people. I wouldn’t place this as a must see drop everything type movie, but it’s worth a watch if you’ve got nothing better to watch and looking to kill some time. Casey Affleck was pretty good in it (although isn’t who I pictured as Patrick from a readers perspective) and Ben did a good job directing imo.

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Oh, believe me, I had no such delusions.  Any movie made after 1999 is probably gonna flop.

I’m actually surprised how many said they have never even heard of it.

I can understand not seeing it but this movie was pretty big at the time and I vaguely remember some people shitting on it just because they don’t like Ben Affleck which caused some controversy.

Reed: Can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks of Gone Baby Gone. They’ll probably talk about Ben’s directing, Casey’s portrayal of Patrick, the great Boston backdrop.

VGS: 

Looks like FPKK is the pick for May.

This movie has it all, girls, cars, violence, go-go dances, bad acting and a killer lead actress by the name of Tura Satana. This movie was directed by Beyond the Valley of the Dolls fame, Russ Meyer.

I'm not sure how I stumbled across this movie, I'm thinking it would have been one of the B grade movie documentaries I've watched. I gave it a watch and loved it. Tarantino has cited this movie as one of his inspirations for Death Proof which definitely shows.

If you don't have a channel showing this (or don't sail the seven seas) then you can watch the Youtube upload below:

5 hours ago, RH said:

Y'all remember back in the 90s and early-00s when every new system seemed to be a remarkable, technical bump and we all just had to have the next new thing, 99% based off of graphics?

Yeah, well, IMHO, dev studios have been acting that we still behave and think that way.  What makes matters worse is the oft-needed Day-1 patch and, even then, dev studios worked so hard to make technically impressive games, it takes often months for AAA titles to be patched to a state where they are what the original designers/artists intended.

No one wants this.  Nintendo, in their own way, gets this.  That's part of why focusing on "withered hardware" has allowed them to stay relevant.  When you are a dev team and you know  you're not going to make the most technically impressive game of the year, you focus on what's enjoyable and fun.  To many studios have focused on massive environments or hyper-realistic graphics and left game play (and often even bug testing) along the wayside.  I can enjoy a good looking game, but this day and age, the "oh, shiny!" affect only keeps my attention for 5-10 minutes.  After that, I need good, inventive gameplay.  I just don't see that in many AAA titles, which is why I stay mostly stuck in the past and if I buy something new, it's almost always an indie title.

I agree and I think this is one of the reasons indies have exploded in popularity. People at the end of the day want a fun game and indies deliver it. 

Oh wow FPKK inched out the win! Or is the voting still going? Also the video I posted was the full movie if people don’t have access to what Link is talking about.

11 minutes ago, fox said:

I didn't know Gone Girl had a sequel.  Guess Ben was too busy so they cast his brother instead.

I know this is a joke post but Ben actually directed this so it doesn’t land so well 

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

Lol did they just retitle NES Remix in order to sell more copies to the VGS segment?

Looks like it's working 

VGS: damn I hate modern gaming, it’s just rehashing and re releases! 

*Nintendo rebrands NES/Famicom Remix

VGS:

I love Denis Lehane's books but this movie adaptation was just ok. It is the third in the series so that's really confusing why they went with this one (they could have setup a nice series of movies). I do remember some reviews being a bit confused with some of the story elements in the movie at the time of release, from memory I think they removed some sections that helped tell the story. I'd go with a 6.5 I think. Read the book if you're into crime thrillers.

5 minutes ago, Gloves said:

You can vote for more than one, which I did.

Ahhhh got you. Hedging your bets I see 

1 hour ago, G-type said:

click "show vote options" and you can change your vote

It's weird that we have 10 votes but only 9 members. Anyway, I went with Streets of Fire.

This looks like NES remix with a new UI. It will be interesting to see how many challenges are taken from it.

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Someone vote so I can piggyback on it and ensure we have a clear winner 

I didn’t realise I was the final vote and the decider between two, I voted my choice and now we’re even votes on two titles

Between the two, Streets of fire would be my pick if I could re vote.

6 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

That is true, but at the end of the day this is just SNES...ugh

I reckon you secretly have a massive library of SFC/SNES games 

43 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

The people have spoken. Pure Nintendo is better than Nintendo tainted with something else.

It’s nearly over a mil now. Finally people are realising Japanese releases > lowly 2nd print scum Western releases.

I'd be surprised if all those bids are real now. The Nintendo Playstation went for $300k and this is already at $456k? It will be interesting to watch and see the final price and if it actually sells for that. 

2 hours ago, Gloves said:

I just beat Makai Prince Dorabocchan, my 150th game so far this year.

Wow! You are well prepared for anything Reed throws on his game debates!

Hatena Satena (GBA)

Hatena Satena is a puzzle game best described as a mix of Picross and Minesweeper. You have different size grids, and you reveal a picture using the available colours. You will also receive a number which will gives you a clue how many of the same colour are around the one you just placed. Added to the pressure is a time limit and a life bar. This simple puzzler gets addictive, and I enjoyed chipping away at a puzzle or two every night. 

This was an exclusive for the GBA in Japan. I’m not sure why it never made it to the West, but it is a pretty decent puzzle game that probably should have. The art style is nice and colourful and the music is catchy and never distracting (an important thing with puzzle games). 

It does fall short in some areas unfortunately. The pictures aren’t very interesting or at times don’t really look like the final object they are meant to be (there’s definitely a stretch of the imagination on some of them).   

The core game revolves around four stories and each story has a set of puzzles to complete over different sized grids. Unfortunately, the core gameplay never changes things around except for the grid sizes so it really does start to drag towards the end and eventually the game overstays its welcome. 

I think with a few tweaks this could have been an even better puzzle game. It’s still worth a play if you’re into puzzle games, you may find yourself getting addicted to the simple nature of the game. 

7/10 

I’d like to see some sort of rotation, although it doesn’t have to be exactly like I said. You’ve raised some good ideas too so any variation of those would be good.

I just figured with such a small group that it would be good to get a good variety of people’s tastes.

I agree that if you put a movie up for nomination and it gets selected you have to have a small intro about it and maybe some facts about it if you know any or do some quick googling.