Ok, I’m going to get this out of the way. I actually liked Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, and anyone who disagrees with me can kiss my stinging, watery, burning, bloodshot eyes! Now I’ll be the first to admit that the VB wasn’t the pinnacle of gaming devices. It awkwardly fell somewhere between a console and a portable game, but its size meant you always had to play it while sitting at a desk, which got uncomfortable real quick. However, for $20 on clearance, with a stack of games for $2 each, I happily overlooked the downsides.
And of the 10 or so Virtual Boy games I’ve ever tried, Mario’s Tennis was, and still is, the most entertaining of the lot for me. You got to choose from seven different characters like Mario, Luigi and other staples in Nintendo’s roster to compete in a singles/doubles match/tournament, but other than that, Mario’s Tennis was pretty basic. Thankfully it had solid tennis gameplay (given the era) and of course a novel, but convincing, 3D effect. I know a lot of people complain about the VB’s infamous red on black display, but I never had a problem with it, and due to a broken set of ‘legs’ I actually discovered that wearing the VB like a mask while laying on your back facilitated hours of gameplay without the discomfort.
P.S. If anyone has a set of Virtual Boy legs in good working condition they’d like to part with, I’ll gladly take them off your hands.
As if it wasn’t awesome enough that E3 was returning to its former glory this year, according to Kotaku, Steve Wiebe will be making an official attempt to reclaim the Donkey Kong world record, currently help held by The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters antagonist, Billy Mitchell. The attempt will go down on June 2, and officials from Twin Galaxies and other gaming notables will be on hand, in addition to probably any one who’s seen the documentary and wants to see Steve reclaim the record. So if you’re heading to E3 this year, make sure to get your Donkey Kong Kill Screen tee and cheer Steve on in style.
The Wii might be the current champion when it comes to having an overload of accessories and peripherals, but let’s not forget that Nintendo has been dabbling in fancy add-ons all the way back to the original NES with the Zapper. So when it was time to release a successor to the NES known as the ‘Super’ Nintendo, the company obviously had to come out with a ’super’ version of the original Zapper. And that’s how I assume the Super Scope came to be.
Unlike the Zapper, which could be easily held in one hand, the Super Scope was like a miniature bazooka designed to be rested on your shoulder while you targeted the screen via a non-magnified scope on top. I wouldn’t say it was the most comfortable thing to hold for prolonged periods, but it was satisfying. Now unfortunately the library of Super Scope-compatible games never grew to be extensive, but thankfully the scope came with its own game called Super Scope 6. The ‘6′ of course led you to believe you were actually getting 6 original games, but that wasn’t the case. It actually came with 2 different titles called Blastris and LazerBlazer, which each had 3 different modes. So I guess if you add all those up you do technically get 6. (Lame.)
I definitely enjoyed the Super Scope for a while since it was part of a Super Nintendo Christmas package, but unfortunately the novelty did wear off rather quickly. Partly due to the limited selection of games, and partly due to the fact that the scope gobbled up 6 x AA batteries. I mean what kid likes to waste their hard-earned cash on batteries?
Radar Rat Race might have been the first C64 game I ever played, but it didn’t take long for our household to amass a healthy collection of Commodore game cartridges. Another title that became a regular in our 64’s cart slot was a game called Sea Wolf, which was really nothing more than a shooting gallery/Space Invaders homage wrapped in a naval combat theme, but it had 2 things going for it that made it particularly enjoyable.
1) It was the first game we had that supported real multiplayer. Not that player 1 goes first followed by player 2 crap. No, Sea Wolf allowed you to go head-to-head with another player at the same time, on the same screen, trying to sink as many battleships, destroyers or PT boats as you could before your opponent did. There’s nothing like a little competition to make things more interesting.
2) It was the first game we had that required the Commodore 64’s paddle controller, which I’ve already discussed in my Lemans post, and still dearly miss to this day. Now I’m hopeful that titles like Sea Wolf might eventually make their way to the Wii’s virtual console, but it just wouldn’t be the same without those paddles.
While I’m familiar with the concept of vibrating football games, I have to admit they’re nothing more than a pop-culture footnote to me. I understand football (not soccer) the game, but I have no idea how the randomly moving and spinning figurines on the game board correlate to running plays or any kind of strategy at all. In fact I’m pretty sure there’s an old vibrating football game kicking around my parent’s home, but it was easily trumped by the C64 when I was a kid.
But with Father’s Day coming up, I’m sure this would make for a nice nostalgia trip for most dads past the age of 40. And who knows, those updated graphics and official NFL branding might just convince me to give it a second chance. If I could find it for a bit cheaper than $79.50 that is.
My appreciation for Star Fox on the Super Nintendo has grown over the years, and I think it’s because the game’s a perfect example of a developer doing more with less. There’s no denying the Super Nintendo was not a 3D gaming system, in fact, Star Fox probably wouldn’t have existed had Nintendo not agreed to the development of the much hyped Super FX 3D accelerator chip. But even with that extra bit of hardware inside the game cart, the graphics and effects seen in Star Fox were pretty crude. The ship design was basic, enemies at times consisted of nothing more than 3D un-textured trapezoids, but nevertheless everything worked, and came together to become a memorable title.
As I recall, Star Fox was technically a rail shooter, which meant that you weren’t flying around a completely open world. But since you had control over your ship’s speed with braking and boosts, you never really felt restricted while navigating your pre-planned course. And while the game was really nothing more than a mindless shooter, the novelty of the 3D combined with great gameplay made it stand out from the crowd. But to be honest, while I have very fond memories of Star Fox, the Fox McCloud puppet on the game box still kind of creeps me out, and even though he was on my side, I would have loved to been able to shoot down that annoying Slippy Toad character.
This week on TGWP I wanted to dig back through my gaming memories as far as I could go, all the way back to the beginning in fact. Like with most families, the Commodore 64 entered our home because my parents thought it would help me in my grade school career with tasks like word processing and what-not. And like with most families, the C64 ended up being a video game console more than anything. Now I’m not sure if the cartridge came bundled with the system or not, but I do know that Radar Rat Race was the very first video game I ever played, on any system. And you know what they say, you never forget your first.
In the game you played as a rat, racing through a maze, trying to collect pieces of cheese while avoiding other rats and randomly placed cats that served as stationary traps more than anything. Besides steering your rat around the maze, the only trick you had to avoid nasty confrontations was to leave a trail behind you that other rats couldn’t cross, and if you were cunning enough, it could be used to trap them as well. Because it was the first game I ever played, I have a lot of very distinct memories of Radar Rat Race, and if you’ve ever wanted to get that Three Blind Mice song stuck in your head, I highly recommend checking out the ‘gameplay’ video I’ve included below.
I’ve discovered that I’m the kind of guy who finds himself baking something tasty at least once a month. I don’t really have a love for baking, nor am I usually making something for a get-together. Rather, I just happen to like the taste of cake and cookies, so I’ll just end up making some for myself instead of conning someone else into doing it. As a gamer, I’ve been wondering how to represent my gaming affection with my baking tools. (Okay, I haven’t actually been wondering that, but just play along.) So how does one do that exactly? With Pac-Man oven mitts of course!
The Pac-Man HotHead Oven Mitts are made completely from silicone and resemble our favorite yellow pill-eater. To give the inside of his mouth a bit of extra grip, it has been designed to look like the classic Pac-Man map. You can pick one of these up starting in April for $15.
Well, with a bastardized updated version of Oregon Trail coming to the iPhone at the end of the month, I thought it was only fitting that this week’s ‘The Games We Played’ should cover that classic title that taught us all how easy it was to lose family members to dysentery.
But, I thought I’d do something different this week. Instead of reminiscing about the thousands upon thousands of buffalo I killed (while only carrying 100 pounds of meat back to my dying family) I figured the trip down memory lane would be a lot funner for all of us by simply playing the game again. So if you head on over to VirtualApple.org, you’ll actually be able to enjoy a Java port of Oregon Trail right in your web browser. Now you’ll need to have Java installed, but that’s a minor inconvenience to spend some quality time with an old friend. Just be careful on those river crossings!
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