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Duke75

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Posts posted by Duke75

  1. Posted

    Ninja Gaiden also enraged me, but not the birds. It's the fact that if you get to the end of stage 5, if you die the game throws you all the way back to the beginning of one of the hardest levels in the game. It's hard enough to get the boss, but then if you lose (which you certainly will if you've never seen him before), you get to go through hell just to get another shot. I read somewhere that the checkpointing on this level was bugged and the developers thought it would be funny to leave the bug in to add to the game's challenge. I beat Ninja Gaiden 2 without too much problem but this game can piss right off.

    • Like 2

  2. Posted

    2 hours ago, HoshiChiri said:

    The N64 I'm on more solid ground with. I didn't own one back in the day, but my friends had systems so I'd play when I was visiting. I later had a friend, shocked (shocked!) that I didn't own an N64 loan me hers so I could 'see what I was missing'. I do have one now- a deck turned up at the local thrift shop for $20 while I still had her machine, so I could verify it worked & had the expansion pak in it. Plus, the one game I really liked of hers (Mischief Makers) also came into the shop. Thing is, that was a few years ago, and I only have 16 games for the thing (in contrast, I own 53 PS1 titles). Once you get away from the first party titles, there's just not a lot of what interests me on the system. Even checking in on forum threads talking about the system usually just sees the same couple dozen titles mentioned that I either already own or don't care about. I guess, in short- I don't get it.

    After a certain point, my N64 was only being played for its wrestling games. The games that AKI made are still widely regarded as the best pro wrestling games ever, or at least very high ranking (Fire Pro certainly has a lot of backers). But it's kind of sparse beyond that, especially if you're not a wrestling fan.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    15 hours ago, wongojack said:

    This opinion of the 360 persists from some strange corners of the internet, and I just do NOT understand it.  The Xbox 360 has more releases than almost any console in history (both physical and digital) across every genre.  It also has more retro releases than any console in history and that record will probably never be broken especially when it comes to the physical releases and the Xbox live indie games that were both ports of classic games and directly inspired by many classic games.  I guess if it didn't have your favorite JRPG or whatever, you think all the other games are FPS or "open world" (which isn't a game genre).

    Well, I'm happy you liked it. I have one and...I dunno, I just found it kind of boring? Moreso than just about any other system I've owned besides the N64. I'm certainly no "JPRG or whatever" fan :)

  4. Posted

    I find the Xbox 360 pretty underwhelming. A lot of FPSs and open world games of varying quality, many of which were probably better on other systems. I actually prefer the original Xbox to it.

     

    I don't get the sense that the N64 is rated all that highly nowadays. I remember people actually really liking its controller at the time, but now everyone makes fun of it (they are pretty fragile, though...), and a lot of its signature games have been remade or improved on.

     

    If we're including computers, I think the C64 is a bit overrated. I certainly like it and it had tons of games, but in general I think the Atari computers were more fun to play on because many games are faster and smoother.

    • Like 1
    • Sad 2

  6. Posted

    A few channels I like that don't get a lot of notice:

     

    Pete Davison: https://www.youtube.com/user/ejaypierre/featured. I don't have much interest in his "Moe Gamer" stuff, but he's doing this concept called Atari A-Z, in which he picks an Atari 800 game, an Atari ST game, and a game from the Atari Flashback release on the Switch based on the first letter of the game's title, and plays through it a bit, giving some information and a review of it along the way.

     

    Pixelmusement/Ancient DOS Games: https://www.youtube.com/user/Pixelmusement/featured. What is sounds like: reviews of old DOS games. I wish the guy had a better vocal delivery (he's a middle-aged guy who sounds like a teenybopper in some ways), but he gives decent reviews and footage of the games.

     

    Sharopolis: https://www.youtube.com/user/sharop/videos. He's not very prolific, but he does videos on obscure systems. If you want to see what games on the Tatung Einstein look like, he's got a short video on it.

     

    Atari Archives: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_f7y6sBDmFnGbZoq1Ce_w/videos. Basically an Atari 2600 version of what Jeremy Parish does.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    C64 games I particularly like:

     

    Project Firestart

    Toy Bizarre

    Turrican 1 and 2

    Uridium

    Ultimate Wizard

    Impossible Mission

    The Last Ninja trilogy

    Airborne Ranger

    Wizball

    Aztec Challenge

    Armalyte

    Gunship

    Space Taxi

    Maniac Mansion

    Paradroid

    Trolls and Tribulations

    Demon Stalkers

     

    Just for starting out. I've generally found that, with some exceptions, when it comes to multiplatform games the C64 version plays the worst except in terms of music. For instance, all the Synapse games are superior on the Atari 800, and games that originated on the Spectrum are often better on the Spectrum. The Apple II version of Dino Eggs is better than the C64's (although it's still a fun game on the C64!).

    • Like 3

  8. Posted

    Leaving aside cartoony games that are still fun, my favorite sim-style sports games were the NBA Inside Drive games for the original Xbox. They didn't get much attention at the time because they were Xbox exclusive and all the hype was for the NBA Live/2K rivalry as those games had slicker graphics and animation, but I found that with some tinkering of the sliders, I could get a very statistically realistic game of basketball that flowed a lot more like a real game and put up a fair challenge. The games also have what I think is to this day the best voice commentary for a sports game that I've heard by Kevin Calabro and Marques Johnson - it just sounded extremely natural and often funny ("Nice dunk by the old vet!" "Hey, now, he's not old. He's just a guy with a good record collection, that's all..."). The guys would chat about players or random stuff but if a big play happened, Colabro would smoothly interject to remark on it. They sounded like real people instead of robots. I can't play the games anymore because my Xbox is dead, but if I can ever get them running, I'm definitely going to check around and see if there's still a community doing roster updates, which you still see with stuff like the NES Tecmo Bowl games.

     

    I'll second the recommendations of the N64 AKI wrestling games. Those are still the best pro wrestling games ever made, IMO. WWE games in particular have been incredibly lazy since the early 2000s, so there's not much competition against No Mercy or Virtual Pro Wrestling 2.

  9. Posted

    Dan Bunten. There never was anything quite like Robot Rascals.

     

    And it may not count as a designer, but Nasir blew my mind when I found out he worked as programmer for the Final Fantasy franchise after making all kinds of games for the Apple II.

     

    Wasn't the story with Nasir ending up at Square that he didn't have anything going on after his company folded, and he was hanging out at a show when he got talking to the Square reps, who upon realizing that he was the genius who did so much with the Apple decided to hire him? I think I read that he gets so many royalties from working on the Final Fantasy games that he's been comfortably retired for years.

  12. Posted · Edited by Duke75

    I take a very simple, self-centered view of the case: Reiche and Ford have made some of my favorite games going all the way back to stuff like Archon, and if they say they want to make a new Ur-Quan Masters game, I would definitely like to see that. Stardock doesn't really make games in which I'm interested, but if they're somehow standing in R&F's way then I'm not on their side.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    -How is GOG in comparison as far as ease of use goes? Seems more up my alley as far as the retro catalog, but harder to get games to run?

     

    IMO old games are easier to run on GOG compared to Steam because GOG actually does try to pre-configure them for you. I still usually adjust dosbox or ScummVM to my liking, but at least it's more like minor tweaking, whereas Steam's mentality is more like "We got your money, now you make it work, sucker." (Unless the publisher takes the setup GOG tested and just resells it on Steam :P ) One major downside about GOG is that, like all other stores, it's tiny compared to Steam, which means that a lot of publishers are happy to release games on GOG and then completely ignore it when it comes to stuff like patches. Because Steam is where all the money is, publishers always make sure the users there get updates first and always, but GOG/DRM-free users are frequently left in the dust. And then there's just the fact that a lot of publishers are still terrified of the whole DRM-free thing, so don't look to GOG in general for really major releases. If GOG does get a AAA game, it's usually because the game is seen as being used up after a few years on Steam and therefore safe to put up on a DRM-free store.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

     

    While I do like NES games, if I have to generalize, I have the opposite opinion about 2600 vs NES in 2018. The NES is constantly reminding me that it hates me, and I usually want to stop playing it sooner than the 2600. I don't really think of NES games as immersive at all. They are beating me over the head with their retro-ness. OTOH, I can play a game like Kaboom for 2 hours (like I did during this week) and still want more. 2600 games are MORE accessible because they are more often just about pure gameplay. IMO that makes it a better console for 2018. After all, I can play "immersive" games on my PS4 or other current gen system.

     

    For me it's about time and what my mood is. I go for NES-and-later systems when I'm in the mood to play something that's going to stretch over a few days or even weeks, but when I just want a game I can get into immediately and blast away, I'm more likely to gravitate toward the 2600. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Legend of Zelda are not games I'm going to decide to throw in and have quick fun for a single afternoon - they demand a slightly different sort of commitment than something like Turmoil or Yars' Revenge.

    • Like 3

  16. Posted

     

    To expand on it:

     

    Wizardry I - III are collectively referred to as the "Llylgamyn Saga" and are honestly nothing more than expansion packs to Wizardry I. They're identical gameplay wise, and even required you to import characters from the previous game to play on Apple II. The best way to play them is probably the Super Famicom port. Avoid the DOS version because it has a bug where your characters tend to lose attributes way more than they should when they level up, which makes the games even more difficult than intended.

     

    Huh, I did not know about the bug. I played the DOS version - maybe that's why I was never quite able to beat it :)

  17. Posted · Edited by Duke75

    Wizardry was my main RPG series when I was younger, so aside from Ultima 3, I missed a lot of the Ultima and Might & Magic games. I've since played most Ultima but I got distracted a little ways into Ultima 6 and never finished it or the rest of the series, and I've never played much M&M at all. I also need to play the later (5-8 ) Wizardry games.

     

    I'd like to actually beat Pitfall someday. Just need to sit down and really do the work, I suppose. Same with Montezuma's Revenge.

     

    I've played through Ocarina of Time a couple of times, but Majora's Mark is the one that gets talked up a lot that I've never even played.

     

    Others that come to mind: Shamus, Yoshi's Island, Metal Gear 2 (MSX), Contra Hard Corps, most of Treasure's output, Impossible Mission, the Starflight games and Star Control 2, Privateer and Wing Commander 3-5...

    • Like 1

  18. Posted · Edited by Duke75

     

    My favorite hockey player when I was a kid was Mario Lemieux. And I always heard his name pronounced "mary-o" so that's how I pronounce Mario and it drives my kids up the wall.

     

    Heh, that reminds me of how people pronounce Conan as Co-NAN when they're referring to the barbarian hero. They sometimes get irritated when you remind them that Conan is an actual Irish name usually pronounced as CO-nan, and it's supposed to be pronounced that way because Robert E. Howard was very enthusiastic about his Celtic ancestry.

  19. Posted

    Gradius was "GRADE-ee-us" and I'm still not sure if that's correct, or "GRAD-ee-us". I still use the first.

     

    Seriously, wtf was up with some of those NES titles? Astyanax, Xexyz, Faxanadu.

     

    I think your first is correct for Gradius. Maybe I'm totally wrong but I get the impression that the game is "supposed" to be named Gladius, in reference to the short sword used by ancient Roman soldiers, but the interchanging of L's and R's in Japan got everyone confused.

     

    For Faxanadu, at least, it's a portmanteau of Famicom Xanadu, since Xanadu was already a popular series over there and they were just doing a Famicom-specific version.

  20. Posted

    The catch is that certain names are appropriated by their country of origin and certain names/phrases are correct in their appropriated form/usage. Atari (the company), Karate Kid (the movie) and Kung Fu (the series) are correct in their Westernized form since their usage (in this context) is English based., even though their origin is Japanese and Chinese and pronounced differently in their original, correct form.

     

    Well, technically the Karate Kid in Japan is known as "The Best Kid" :)

  22. Posted

    The Way (Windows) - That Flashback homage that came out a couple of years ago. Pretty cool so far, although the puzzle I left off on last night is pretty obtuse.

    Batman: Arkham Origins (Windows)

    Yar's Revenge (2600) - Well, I tried to play it but then my dog got on my lap and insisted on licking my face until I turned it off. He's done this a couple of times when I've started playing 2600 games. I think the sound bothers him. I guess I'll have to play it when he's not around.

  23. Posted

    When Jeremy Parish is good, he's very good. When he's not, however, he's terrible. The latest Retronauts is about the 30year anniversary of the Sega Genesis and since the hosts were "Nintendo kids," they know very little about the system. They go on with 90 minutes of ad-sponsored yammering nonetheless. Ergh.

     

    Yeah, I like Parish but he definitely has his quirks and limitations. He also seems to have this mentality that Atari-era gaming was this tortured evolutionary march toward the glory of the NES. You see this particularly in his (suspended?) Metroidvania series, in which games like Zork were apparently all just lesser prophets presaging the true perfection of Super Metroid. Hell, I like Super Metroid but I'm not even sure it's better than the original Metroid, which Parish sometimes claims is "unplayable" now :P

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

     

     

    I don't hate him personally. I hate his show, and I hate the character that he created. People like him are why I don't go around telling people in my personal life that I have a YouTube channel.

     

    I'm almost always turned off by YouTube channels that feature people mugging at the camera a lot. Most of the good videos I've seen feature someone narrating calmly. If someone does insist on being on camera, I find it more tolerable if they're just being themselves instead of playing some bug-eyed and jaw-swinging caricature.

    • Like 5
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