Super Metroid – SNES – Part II

I started playing Super Metroid a while ago, which is awesome, and decided that because I have basically 0 first-hand knowledge of this particular game or the series in general, I would do some live-blogging. At least until I get bored of doing it (or you get bored of reading it).

So, where we left off.

I had just finished the (pretty amazing) intro sequences and started encountering enemies (which I was exterminating with extreme prejudice).

And immediately, hilarity ensues.

I found the morph ball and procured some missiles, then started to head out. This was wrong, BECAUSE when I get almost back to my ship I see a little spot where I can only go if I go into morphball (MBM) mode. I do this and BOOM, I’m stuck in a cavern I can’t get out of.

Much Googling of the Googlez revealz that past the MB there was another path for me to follow where I would get freakin’ bombs!

I return to the caverns.

AND DISCOVER THAT THERE ARE NO BOMBS. Are the missles supposed to be bombs? Emulator bug? Weird.

OKOKOKOKOK.

The problem is that I didn’t know it took 5 missiles to bust open a pink door. You see, dear reader, you shoot a door to open it. I figured that out pretty fast, but that only seemed to work on BLUE doors. Not sure how I was supposed to figure out that it takes 5 missiles to blast a PINK door open…

/sigh

That’s probably enough futility for one night. This blog is rapidly becoming FORSOOTHED IS BAD AND HE SHOULD FEEL BAD.

However, I did kill a boss AND NOW HE’S DEAD AND I GOT HIS MORPH BALL BOMBS.

Next time: I see if I can get out of this hilarious pit of despair.

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Super Metroid – SNES

I’m going to play the heck outta Super Metroid for a few minutes and live-blog it

Stupid idea? Sure. Boring as heck? Maybe. Am I going to do it? Yes.

This game starts out in a very cool way, bringing the player (that would be me) up to speed on Seamus’ previous adventures. Since I skipped straight to Super Metroid, this is pretty helpful.

Turns out that these Metroid things are the enemy and crazy dangerous. I’m guessing if left uncontrolled, they’ll spread across the universe. Think the Reapers in Mass Effect… or Tribbles…

Anyway, I’m updating this post as I’m playing, and I’m about 5 minutes in and haven’t really faced an enemy yet (aside from a mini-boss? or maybe the actual end-boss who stole the sole remaining Tribbl… I mean Metroid). Now I’m on Planet Ceres exploring. I didn’t think this game would include exploring.

This all sounds a bit boring, but it’s actually more than a little spooky. The sound effects are ominous and there seem to be explosions (or something) in the background. And for what they’re worth, the 16 bit graphics are doing their best to freak me out.

See? That’s some seriously ominous atmosphere there folks.

I’m not super happy about having to hold the right trigger to shoot straight ahead… but we’ll see how that plays out.

Oh yeah, there’s also already been a number of doors I couldn’t enter and a bunch of spots that I’ll have to get the ball-thingy upgrade to go into. I’m not sure if that’s frustrating or bad-ass… Like, let me get into the game before I know I’m going to have to make my way back.

Wow, and BOOM there’s the ball-thingy (apparently it’s ACTUALLY called a Morphing Ball). PHHT 🙂

And then BOOM MISSLES!?! Have I mentioned that I haven’t actually FOUGHT anything yet? I’m getting a bad feeling about this…

Ah, there they are! Suckas tried to ambush me BUT I’M READY FOR YOU – PEW PEW PEW!

Oh, before I forget, I wrote a little bit about my history with Metroid a few posts ago. Basically, I have no history with Metroid.

Afterburner – Game the game

Afterburner is a pretty boring game

My first attempt resulted in a lame score and only Stage 3

But I’m not sure why. I mean, it has all the elements that should make it pretty awesome (and why little Forsoothed would’ve thought it was awesome): you pilot a sweet F14, your missles ‘lock on’, you get to shoot billions of enemies, it’s not impossibly hard (possibly the name of someone’s sex tape)…

I can’t believe you clicked on that link, you perv! (srsly though, it’s SFW)

Maybe it’s just an example of a game/style that’s been done better as time moves on? Or maybe the ‘fly in a straight line with no real control over where you’re going format’ just doesn’t have any staying power once you’re past the coolness of the F14?

WHO DO I WORK FOR AND WHAT I’M I ACCOMPLISHING HERE? Are we at war? Who are we? What is war?

YOU GET TO DO MID-FLIGHT REFUELING! #rad

Warning – “game studies” sentences incoming

Afterburner is probably an example of a seriously ludo-game like Tetris, no story whatsoever, but without the interesting mechanics. A ludo-game without the “fun”.

End “game studies”

Anyhoo, the good parts: all of the aforementioned cool stuff, plus you get to launch from an aircraft carrier, the ‘Sega Enterprise’. Oh Sega, you do go on. The gameplay is quite crisp and since I’m not going to have the patience to play through the boredom, I immediately wanted to find a cheat to see what the bosses (if there are bosses) would be like. Apparently there are 18 stages in Afterburner, I think I made it to 5 or 6 with some real effort.

Final thoughts, or “After” burner (oh self, you do go on)

In retrospect, this should’ve been a ‘played it for 5’ game: worth resurrecting for a quick (barrel) roll, but I’ve spent more time writing about Afterburner than actually playing it.

You let me down younger self, you let me down.

I did get better, 10X my first go-round #hardcore

 

Chrono Trigger – SNES

/sigh

So I was writing this post on my phone and apparently when one does that, one must remember that the WordPress app is REALLY anxious to publish your post. One (me) did NOT remember that and a half-done version of this post was live over the weekend.

Sorry about that.

Anyhoo, ON TO THE ACTUAL POST!

http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Chrono_Trigger

I haven’t written in so long that I wanted to take any opportunity to start contributing to the blog again.

SO I decided to try out an Android emulator (after some quick research I bought SuperGNES) and spend some time with Chrono Trigger! This game is a bit legendary BUT I’VE NEVER PLAYED IT and I basically know nothing about it.

So. In the interest of actually posting something on this damn blog, I’ll forgo convention and just post!

This is going to be rad!

First off, I can only choose a name that’s 5 characters long… I’m glad THAT part of old games has died a horrible death.

Then IS THAT FREAKING PIKACHU? IS THIS WHERE GORD-DAMN POKEMON COME FROM???

Nope. Turns out that cats just look a lot like Pokemon in Chrono Trigger. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed.

No matter how many old games I play I always find the lack of hand-holding a little jarring. They were ok with having you wander around a bit being a confused. After all, aren’t you smart enough to figure this stuff out on your own (I’m not)? Does that ever happen anymore… aside from sandbox games?

To start off Chrono Trigger I’m supposed to go find Num09 (you get to name some of the characters, i’m guessing she’ll be part of my party later on – later I named a girl who ran into me and dropped a pendant, Penny… for obvious reasons). I named her Num09 because she’s an inventor, so obviously she would have a number in her name.

I’ll have to look into the bloodlines here, because aesthetically Chrono Trigger really reminds me of Final Fantasy, but I have no idea which one came first… that seems like a long, dark, deep, nerd hole to fall into. Heck, maybe all the RPGs looked like this – I mean: it works.

Side-note

The controls in this emulator work surprisingly well. I wouldn’t want to use SuperGNES to play anything that required precise or quick controls, like Contra, but for an RPG they’ve been totally usable so far.

This is an involved game

I didn’t play for all that long, maybe 30-45 minutes in total spread across a few days, but I’m going to keep putting in time on this game and I’ll keep you updated. I’ve found that the small phone screen discourages me from long play-periods, which will draw this out, but the overall experience is pretty solid. I’ll probably write more on that later as well.

Blades of Steel on NES – Game the Game

THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED IT TO BE! UP IS DOWN, DOWN IS UP, AND ICE HOCKEY IS THE ONE WITH THE DAMN PLAYER SELECTION!

phillbarron.files.wordpress.com

As you may remember, I posted a Pre Game with my mind’s eye not being able to distinguish between Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel. Well, dear reader, as you can tell from the headlines… was I wrong. So very wrong.

Here are some notes I wrote frantically whilst my entire world crumbled around me…

• Whoa whoa whoa… when you lose a fight YOU’RE DOWN A PLAYER!?!?!?!
• I can’t figure out how to pass – looks like it might be a problem with the emulator I’m using… apparently passing is actually a feature
• You control your own goalie – there’s an arrow that floats up and down in the net
• I can be Edmonton (whose colours are green?) AND NOT CALGARY (muaa ha ha)

MUAA HAA HAA, stupid Calgary!

In short, Blades of Steel is a very solid game. It’s just not the game I remembered… not in the least. The controls were also a weird adjustment for me.

(I’ll likely post about this in the future, but I was/am/always will be a huge fan of the early NHL games on the Genesis. They were probably THE fundamental series of games of my childhood. And lately I’ve been trying to get into the more modern NHL franchise with… limited… success. Anyway, all of this is context to me trying to get my little brain around the controls in Blades of Steel.)

It’s me, not you

My first few plays didn’t go phenomenally well (this image is of the CPU scoring… which it did a lot of), but that’s not a game issue. It’s entirely my lack of skill + total and utter loss and how I had misremembered this game. I’ll definitely be playing more Blades of Steel.

And stay tuned for my Game the Game for Ice Hockey!

NBA Jam TE – Sega Genesis – Game the Game

JOHN STARKS! The dude I couldn’t remember from the Knicks is John Starks!

BUT I decided that I wouldn’t go with ol’ Starksy for my first game, so I chose Da’Bulls. Now, this brings me to an ENTIRE part of NBA Jam that I forgot about: you chose a 3-letter name and immediately set about defeating the entire NBA, starting with the Mavericks.

So, needless to say, I dispatched of the Mavericks without a lot of trouble (I mean: Pippen… come on)…

In my massive 8 pt stomping of Dallas, I learned the following about this game:

• Using your CPU partner is 100% boring, but actually works (I don’t remember this at all… did I always play this game with friends?)
• I’m not as good as I remember. Seriously. I didn’t get ONE “HE’S ON FIRE”
• I had a hard time dunking really awesome dunks. I don’t remember this aspect being that difficult. You know, the “jam” aspect of NBA Jam…
• I didn’t get a single block
• Mashing turbo made my thumb hurt (A – shoot; B – turbo; C – pass) feels like I used a different combo. ALSO, remember when the controllers actually made your hands HURT? Geez, my old man hands can’t take this kind of punishment anymore… probably because they took all the contorted-into-weird-Sega-Genesis-controller-shapes-playing-games punishment when I was a teenager
• The CPU IS A DAMN DIRTY CHEAT IN THE FINAL MINUTES OF THE GAME AND YES I KNOW I COULD’VE TURNED THAT OPTION OFF, BUT SERIOUSLY IT HAS A BUILT-IN CHEAT MODE FOR THE DAMN DIRTY CPU PLAYER?!?!?
• And finally, the defensive strategy of ‘knock the other guys over’ seems to work well 🙂

Never did figure out what the “TE” gives me… though I did see online that apparently it’s possible to unlock a whack of hidden players. Like, Bill Clinton…

If you’re into that.

Which I’m not.

Final game stats

And sweet zombie jesus, if you REALLY want to get into the game without playing the game, I found a 4.5 hour playthrough on YouTube… so there’s that…

Because I don’t have a good way to grab video, want to be as multi-sensory as possible, and don’t want to deprive you of an actual review of NBA Jam TE on the Genesis by someone how sound like a game-reviewer, I found this for you:

… aaaaaaaannnnnnndddddddd

Yes, I chose “ASS” as my name. And you would’ve too, you saucy minx.

PS – here’s the pre game.