durkada

Sorry if this is old news -- first I've seen of it. Warlords is back. I can finally get rid of my cocktail table. Actually... given the track record of these Atari remakes, I should hold on to it. This one doesn't look too bad. But I said the same thing about Haunted House. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DaXwd8OWc&feature=related

Didn't know about this one! I read about the Fantastic Four table, and thought which produced a "meh" from me. Nothing against the subject of the table, simply that I found the whole Marvel line to be lack-luster compared to the Zen tables. So, am happy to see they are still pooling some resources to produce tables for Zen!

Well, not at the moment, for obvious reasons. But when the PSN goes back on-line, I'll be racing on it with Mod-Nations. Its an amazing game, by my estimate. Easily, my favorite cart racer -- it combines the frantic gameplay with technical controls. The single player missions are absolute garbage and will infuriate you with the rubber-banding; but this is consistent with most racing games. On-line is where the action is at. As another Mario Kart alternative, Sonic All Star Racing is surprisingly superb. Oh, yes, it is a total clone of Mario Kart -- but I think they come closer to perfecting the formula. I'm not certain that Mario gets better with every iteration; Nintendo plays it safe, changing little, yet keeping in elements that people loathe, and introduces things that really don't improve the experience. Sonic feels like a highly evolved Mario Kart. It's really superb, and quite cheap. If you decide to pick up this budget title, the single player experience isn't too bad, but on-line is still better. Furthermore, it really needs the first patch to shine. Yup I agree. I finally broke down and got it and noticed the single player game is tough. I want to try online but of course PSN has been down and I never got online weeks ago when it was up. I also have Sonic and I thought it was pretty good as well. I finished and unlocked a bunch of things in that game. I think I did most of it with Sonic and the Oolala girl. The downloads they offer for the additional cars are not really worth it in my opinion. The iron\mech Sonic is pretty good but not totally worth it. The "cheating"\enemy karts are not that frustrating, its mostly the track and how you drive your kart if I recall that makes a difference. Mario Kart for me is probably the most frustrating game ever made. I like Mario Kart but the cheat programming for the enemy karts is absurd. I'm not sure why they do that but its completely riduculous to even try and beat that game without cheating yourself. Do the fans really want it to be that hard? Unlike you, I didn't find Mario Kart to be too challenging. Like any racer, there is rubber-banding that makes the game feel less than satisfying as a single player experience. The only reason to play the single player is to unlock stuff, which is a pain. My main problem with it is that the game devolves into a huge crapshot, and for a game that lasts only a few minutes, it punishes the leader. In a longer game, a catch-up mechanism makes a great deal of sense. But in such a short affair it creates way too much chaos, and focuses so heavily on bashing the leader, that you soon realize it is a bad idea to lead the pack. When you play a racing game and realize there is no incentive for being in first place, what is the point? Sega did it right. Their version of the blue shell is really quite ingenious. In the HUD, there is a band that illustrates where each player is, relative to each other and the track. When you launch a missile, it blasts forward and you can see it travelling through this band. It still requires skill to be effective, because you choose when to activate it. You have to pay attention to your driving, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the progress of the missile. Miss your target? Too bad. Mod-nations, in my mind, is the most aggravating of all single-player experiences. You have to play it to unlock items for the multi-player. But doing so is a chore, for no matter how much you lead and punish the AI, they miraculously come in ahead of you. I'm really sick of games that force you to play a single player campaign to enjoy the full features of the online experience.

Folklore is a pretty good recommendation, actually. It is the most hidden of all the gems I could think of. One thing to note, it has a big flaw. There are two characters that go through the game... Keats and Ellen, I think, were their names. Each one is solving a little mystery, and, of course, their roads continue to cross. Unfortunately, and here is where the game is just dumb-founding, as soon as you make it through a level as one character, you'll have to go through the same level as the other character. The game is beautiful, however -- just absolutely beautiful. Amazing sound and music, with an art direction that you will not soon forget. The gameplay, itself, is fun. I'm not a huge fan of bash-em-ups, but I like this. But the game was a commercial failure, and rightfully so. Still, I'm glad I have a copy. Ignoring PSN download games, I can think of two more semi-obscure games. Valkyria Chronicles. Strange little tactical game. Quite good, and successful enough to spawn a version for the PSP, and, I think, a sequel is in the works. But, not heavily advertised and most people seem to be unaware. Buzz. This is a trivia game franchise that begun on the PS2. If you are a huge trivia buff, you probably know this series, otherwise, it tends not to get much attention. Absolutely superb as a party game -- I think 8 or 10 people can join in, each with their own Buzz controller. On-line play, with some good expansion packs, its easy to recommend.

Undeniably, its still Motorstorm. Now it is Motorstorm in an urban disaster zone, but it is still Motorstorm. The core driving experience remains: a wide variety of vehicles in your pool, all suited to different paths on the same course. The driving remains rough 'n' tumble, with a good dash of strategy and tactics to boot. The music remains quite good, but is almost entirely electronica (suits me!). But the story does mar what was, otherwise, a classy franchise. The story is god awful. Maybe I am being snobbish in saying this, so be it: the racing in Motorstorm was smart -- you had to think about what you were doing, despite the arcade nature of the game. To play Motorstorm well, you have to be a thoughtful person. And a thoughtful person will despise the narrative surrounding the races. It simply dumbs down the whole experience. If they had left the rave motif found in the previous iterations, it would have been a perfect sequel. As it is, there is some great racing action sandwiched between slices of stupid. Fortunately, its easy to bypass the stupid and get back to the racing -- if you are going to bother with the single player. Some of the courses are very busy, in terms of things jutting out the terrain. I don't mind this -- but pay close attention when near walls, or travelling through tight corridors, or you will likely find that destruction engine showing your vehicle mangled and your limp body flying. The question I have... with the incursion of a very stupid narrative in the game, I wonder who is in control of the franchise? The game is still good... I wonder if the next one will be. And, on a semi-related note. Split-Second, also with the environmental destruction, is excellent.

I have one of these... had it for ages. I can't imagine how it would work for spinner games like Tempest, and doubt it would be very useful for paddle games. But for racing games, it was magnificent. It offers a great deal of precision, while at the same time allowing you to make a radically sharp turn almost instantaneously.

It does look nice -- the streaming slugs over head during latter part of the video always being cool. I have to admit I don't like the theme, but damn, I love Battlefield 2: Bad Company. Its the closest I've had to a video game obsession -- playing on-line like a complete addict. I keep hoping the next BF3 pre-release video I see features multi-player.

Well, not at the moment, for obvious reasons. But when the PSN goes back on-line, I'll be racing on it with Mod-Nations. Its an amazing game, by my estimate. Easily, my favorite cart racer -- it combines the frantic gameplay with technical controls. The single player missions are absolute garbage and will infuriate you with the rubber-banding; but this is consistent with most racing games. On-line is where the action is at. As another Mario Kart alternative, Sonic All Star Racing is surprisingly superb. Oh, yes, it is a total clone of Mario Kart -- but I think they come closer to perfecting the formula. I'm not certain that Mario gets better with every iteration; Nintendo plays it safe, changing little, yet keeping in elements that people loathe, and introduces things that really don't improve the experience. Sonic feels like a highly evolved Mario Kart. It's really superb, and quite cheap. If you decide to pick up this budget title, the single player experience isn't too bad, but on-line is still better. Furthermore, it really needs the first patch to shine.

I don't understand this. It IS fake. It's not as if the screen is going to physically morph or something. It's just an illusion of depth, like all 3D is. You could argue that any movement on screen is fake because it's just static images shown in quick succession to fool your eyes. Battery life for me is not an issue. Unless you are are on a super long flight or going on a major hike, I don't see how a 5 hour battery life is such a huge deal. I mean, there are electircal outlets everywhere and charging the unit is simpler than ever. People are talking like it's GameGear 2.0 I tried to clarify how it looked fake by comparing the resulting images to shift lens photography. I'll stand by that statement, even if "fake" is a bad choice of words. Yes, all these 3D technologies are essentially illusions, but I think the original poster was probably noting how the lower resolution and draw distance makes the image less convincing. Again, I'm actually fond of it for these very limitations -- it looks less like a window into an alternate reality, as it does a little moving miniature diorama. As for battery life, it does suck. Unless I'm exclusively playing DS games, I'm lucky to get 2 hours of playtime. And, since I travel alot, this does matter to me.

Looks really cool! And I wasn't familiar with Atic Atak. But now that I've seen some gameplay on the old YouTube, I'm fairly stoked. I only hope the monsters don't wander stupidly around the rooms, rather than attack the protagonist. Otherwise, it looks like a really cool game -- I love how brisk and fast the character moves around the screen.

Yes, I was surprised. Mushrooms is a little gem of a real time strategy game. All the resource management is stripped out, if I recall. I may, in fact, pick up the DLC.

Has anyone picked this up? I've been curious and somewhat tempted.

I always feared that the game would be too crowded for a person to make a difference. But there is a demo out now, so I'll give it a shot this weekend. Cheers, J

I'm definitely grooving with my 3DS. I think many people will be underwhelmed by the capabilities of the machine, in general. For all the talk of its amazing graphical prowess, it still seems a little lack luster in capabilities compared to a PSP. I was, however, amused to note that the battery life on this sucker is worse than any PSP model -- even with the spinning metal PSP games! But with that out of the way, I got mine largely to "upgrade" from my first gen DS, which I always kinda despised. Finally, I'm able to play many of my old DS games on this bugger and am enjoying them much more than before. The 3D effect is nothing more than a gimmick, but its a pleasant gimmick at times. On the latest Raving Rabbids, I absolutely love the 3D effect. The developers of that game also put in some "jokes" with the 3D technology. For instance, in the egyptian levels, a beetle will fly around and land on the screen. Unfortunately, they put its underside facing the viewer, so its less effective than if it looked like it was crawling on top of your actual DS. Overall, as someone else remarked, the 3D looks fake. Part of that has to do with the fact that the resolution is relatively low -- but take some 3D photos in good lighting and the results are kinda cool. I find that it creates a feel similar to shift lens photography. I quite like it, for that reason. People also griped over the fact that there are Nintendo games in the launch. Fair enough, but that is another thing which pleases me. There are some very strong 3rd party launch titles (and some tripe), and I'm hoping that Nintendo taking a back seat will help to encourage 3rd party support -- always something which is tepid on Nintendo platforms. But, given that this is one of the least hyped launches, I'm not certain if it will matter.

Thanks for posting this, since I had no idea a Burger Time remake was in the works. Given that, IMHO, Burger Time has always been a third tier classic, it seems like a game with room for improvement. Hopefully this will capture the spirit of the original and keep it challenging, while making the game-play a little more fluid and dynamic. The split screen multiplayer is very intriguing.

My main point of embarrassment relates to Soul Caliber. In most games I tend to gravitate towards a single character, usually female. The idea is, if I'm going to spend an inordinate amount of time staring at a single character on screen, it should be pleasant on my eyes. Ivy was my choice. When she first appeared on the Dreamcast, she was already well endowed and definitely had me hooked. She was also very challenging to play well, requiring a bit more forethought than some of the other characters -- all of which suited me. But Iteration after iteration, however, she's just become ridiculous. Her bewbage is now several times the size of her head, and she looks like a surgically altered porno star. She is still the only character I play, but now... its just an embarrassment when I do. "So... that's what you find attractive?" "Sigh... not anymore."

Well, I don't know if you can really blame EA for re-balancing the game. I suspect thats a decision of the developers. Frankly, I suspect EA would be against it simply because it means more money spent without any immediate benefit. I got into Battlefield late in the game, probably after all the tweaking has been completed. From my perspective, it feels well balanced -- with the exception of the helicopters. I feel you. Battlefield is, I think, they _only_ hook they have with me. I'm such a whore for Bad Company 2, that I'll probably wind up getting the next installment no matter how much EA might suck. What I wonder is how much this backlash against the big guys (Activision and EA) is fueling smaller dev houses. Final note -- its a genuine pity what has become of those names. EA and Activision were beacons of creativity and class when I was a kid.

Just curious; how would you have designed a two-screen handheld's form differently? This question wasn't addressed to me, but there are two aspects of the DS which drives me nuts. 1) The ergonomics are horrible. Smooth contours that a hand was meant to hold, and buttons easier to reach would have done wonders. 2) The split screens. I don't know if it needs to be split screen, actually. Most games don't seem to utilize this aspect of the DS. But my major problem is that they are positioned vertically. Our eyes are better with horizontal images, not vertical. These split screens make some games, for me, nearly impossible to play. Bomberman, split between the two screens is completely awful. The touch screen was a nice innovation for a hand-held. The 3D, potentially, could be really cool in the next gen. But I don't see the split screens being particularly useful outside of gimmickry.

A little late to the party I'm in the same boat as others. If a standard pokey happy cart is available, I'd take that -- otherwise, put me down for an XM. Thanks

This was awesome news. Demon Souls was a revelation for me. I think its probably the best title of this generation... I was surprised that Dark Souls is going to be released so soon, remember -- maybe incorrectly -- that the developers had no plans for a sequel. I'm glad one is coming, however. I'm especially happy that it is coming to the 360. While I'll stick with the PS3 version, I've got enough friends who would love this game, but do not have a PS3.

I'm left wondering about what you consider a smaller collection. How small is the collection of a guy who posts Youtube videos about retro gaming and the cool stuff people send him in the mail. I consider mine to be of a sane size. Its comprised largely of games I want to play, with the exception of those friends offloaded on me.

For whatever reason, I tend to dislike stories in games. Maybe this has something to do with my own age -- growing up in an era when the motivations of Pac-Man didn't require explanation. So, while I played a little bit of the campaign, I abandoned it without care. Multiplayer, for me, is where it is at. Killzone 2 is quite good in this respect. And for all that its natural to lump all the FPS games together, there are a lot of nuances between most of them that make each a compellingly different experience. And within the confines of the genre, Killzone 2 and Gears of War are dramatically unalike; here, enjoying one, in no way should suggest you would enjoy the other. There was an article released, recently, from a military officer as to which game is the most realistic. The dust effects in CoD MF 2 (if memory serves), scored points; but for actual gameplay, Killzone 2 felt the most realistic. Killzone 2 has a sense of inertia, so that running begins a little slowly and doesn't end immediate; and the speed at which one can bring the scope to your face feels vastly more realistic. Realism isn't a selling point for me -- I don't need realism in games, and, frankly, prefer that I not recreate the horrors of life with any fidelity. But, the physics do separate it from other games, and probably appeals to a different type of player. And while I don't want to get sucked into the hype, Killzone 3 has my hopes up. Apparently the controls are a little tighter (less realistic, I'm guessing), which some people will like. I've not play it in a while. As far as shooters go, Bad Company 2 is my obsession. But if you want to play with some AtariAgers some time, my PSN ID is the same as what I use on these forums.

Thanks for the heads up on Spelunker. I've bene on the fence with that one, but will probably take the plunge. I had played the original and remember enjoying it. Maybe my tastes will have changed, but I'm willing to give the remake a go -- specifically because of the multiplayer bits Like you, I only knew of Thexder because of Classic Game Room. Where was I? Not playing games during the whole 16-bit console era.

Good stuff. I had never seen an Atari 400 with a real keyboard!

Overall, I'm fairly happy with modern gaming. While there are endless rehashes of the same type of game, with only slight differences between them, there is, nonetheless, an amazing level of creativity gracing the scene. I was partially expecting a greater level of stagnation; but games like LBP2, Hoard, PixelJunk Racer, and many others continue to shine. I'll even forgive the cut-scenes laden games; those titles that strive to be a movie, rather than a game. That's a trend I don't like, but can simply ignore. What genuinely makes me angry, are games which are too easy. Many games simply do not know how to scale the difficulty, if it even offers different levels of challenge. The Wii, as you might guess, seems to typify this extreme -- especially first party titles. The Mario Galaxy games are a perfect example -- the only real challenge comes from fighting the camera at odd times. If the games weren't inherently enjoyable, I wouldn't care; why not be enjoyable and offer a challenge? Or at least the option of a challenge. The most criminal example of this is Rabbids Go Home. The game is pure genius. Its richly inventive, absolutely hilarious on levels that both and adult and child can appreciate, and introduces a fun new type of 3D platforming. But its woefully easy. If it had the option for a little challenge, I would probably have called it the best title of this generation. As it is... its just a novelty