Impressions: Castelian (NES)
December 10, 2009 by Tim
Castelian originally caught my eye when I read about its Commodore 64 incarnation: Nebulus. Namely, it’s the interesting graphical effect it uses during almost all of the gameplay that drew me to it. The game is a puzzle platformer where you’re some strange pig/frog creature and you’re hopping around platforms on the outside of a series of cylindrical towers in an effort to tear them down. The effect used to display the rotation of the tower as you move around it is really convincing, and quite impressive for an 8-bit game.
I left it at that, though. I don’t own a C64, so I wasn’t going to make much of an effort to play it. But then I noticed this game called Castelian on the NES that looked really similar. As it turns out, it’s actually the same game, just under a different name. Why? I dunno. But I’ll take it. It was a pleasant surprise to see I could play Nebulus after all!
So now that I have it, how does it fare? Pretty well, so far. My first impression of the game was that it was pretty damn hard. I couldn’t even beat the first level. Your pig/frog is not very mobile, doesn’t jump very well, and there are lots of awkwardly placed ledges to fall down and enemies to run into. Then I remembered what Metroid and Metal Gear taught me: Be patient! It’s not about busting through the game on a single life, it’s about exploring and learning the best way through the level. Once I took that approach, I started to make some good progress.
So now I’m up to the fourth level (of eight) and the level design is really starting to come alive. Stage 3 had some clever tricks to it, and stage 4 is even more intricate. I’m really starting to like it, and I’m eager to see what’s in store for later levels.
I still suck at the bonus stages, though…
What’s coming…
December 10, 2009 by Tim
Ah, it’s been a while since I posted a Sitegeist. Heck, it’s been a while since I posted at all, so let’s kill two birds with one stone here. Things are getting under control at work and I just wrapped up grad school exams, so maybe I’ll have more time to play games and post here? Here’s what’s in the pipeline:
- Part 2 of my Metal Gear impressions and review. My NES was out of commission for a while, but with a repaired 72-pin adapter, it’s good to go again. So, it’s time to finish this game!
- Rocket Knight Adventures review. It’s actually been a few months since I finished this game and a review has been sitting in the queue, ready to post as soon as I get some screenshots. It’s probably time for that.
- Top Gear 2 review. This is the one I tackled after RKA, so it needs a review, too.
- Castelian impressions. I’m going to play through Castelian while I work on Metal Gear, so those are coming, too. (In fact, I think I’ll post the first part now…)
So yeah, stay tuned!
(P.S.: I’m glad to see Nintendo finally caught up with Sega in the poll… Go Nintendo!)
Sega’s disjointed hardware strategy: A story in pictures
November 4, 2009 by Tim
It’s no secret that Sega was all over the place towards the end of the 16-bit era in terms of their hardware strategy. There were two models of the base Genesis, two models of the basic Sega CD, the CDX combination system, third party hardware like the JVC X’Eye and other licensed devices, the Nomad, and, of course, the 32X. In other words, what a mess!
So, I always knew things had gotten complicated for Sega fans around the time of the 32X’s release, but now that I’ve picked up a new-in-box console myself, it’s really become clear how bad it really was. One of my favorite parts of getting an unopened gaming item from years past is looking through the stuff that comes in the box. Not just the game, systems, or manuals, but especially the advertising inserts. Opening these old games and systems is like a time capsule, and the 32X was especially interesting.
I figured a few other people out there might be interested in seeing some of the same things, so here are a few shots of what came in the 32X box, which really emphasize how much of a mess Sega’s hardware strategy really was.
Let’s start off a little easy. First of all, we have a flyer for the Genesis six-button controller. This controller did a nice job of segmenting the Genesis market. There were those who had the three button controller and couldn’t make the most of the hottest games of the time: fighters. Mortal Kombat? Street Fighter II? Eternal Champions? Forget it, if you didn’t have a six-button controller. Sure, you could play them, but why would you want to? I give Sega the benefit of the doubt on this one, though. The three-button controller was well past its prime and six buttons were practically required. Besides, controller changes are almost always for the better. This one was a fantastic upgrade, just like the NES dogbone controllers, and the Xbox S and Saturn revisions that would follow.
Six Button Flyer
Sure, an upgraded controller segments the market, but it was probably a good business decision in general, since the older controllers were so lacking. But this next one is odd. Did Sega really need to get into the business of making power strips? Well, they were kind of forced to. After all, if you had a Genesis, Sega CD, AND a 32X, then you’d have three separate AC adaptors. The best part? Most standard power strips can’t fit three separate AC adaptors… So, Sega was there for its devoted fans:
Sega Power Strip
So, getting all your systems plugged in is a bit difficult, huh? Well, that’s nothing compared to this next picture. Just think about all the different possible hardware combinations those power supplies were feeding. In fact, there were even different cords required for attaching the 32X to different base combinations! This picture sums it up nicely, but actually underestimates the problem. Where’s the X’Eye? Where’s the LaserActive?? Oh, and remember that the number of combos doubles once you add in the 32X!
Too many Sega combinations
The best part of all this? Even Sega themselves couldn’t keep their different hardware combinations straight. As the next two pictures show, there was some definite confusion over the CDX. Was it supported or wasn’t it? It seems they thought it was, but at the last second, decided it wasn’t, so they slipped a warning card into the box and a sticker on its front to correct the out of date printed instructions. Oh, and how were people supposed to know that the 32X audio might not work properly for their model of Genesis if gamers only got to see this warning card after buying and opening the system?
32X Warning Card
Conflicting Information
Ahh, that was fun. I hope you get as much amusement out of all this as I did. It’s sad to see Sega out of the hardware business, but when I see stuff like this, it’s obvious they have nobody else to blame but themselves. Can you really hold it against consumers for being skeptical when Sega released the Saturn? As great as the system was (and really, the Sega CD and 32X aren’t awful platforms, either), I can understand why things turned out the way they did.
Oh, and as for my Genesis/CD/32X setup? Yeah, it’s a mess, too. To make matters worse, the system just ends up flat out freezing when I play anything on the 32X. Fun! Notice the extra A/V cord for the Model 1 Genesis, the otherwise useless piece of spacer plastic for the Model 2 Genesis, and the two totally different controllers. Plus the Sonic & Knuckles with lock-on Sonic 3! Maybe “disjointed hardware strategy” is an understatement…
Sega 32X'Eye
A new addition to the family (Sega 32X)
October 24, 2009 by Tim
The latest addition to my console collection arrived today — a brand new, still in the box, complete, unopened Sega 32X. I was an SNES guy back in the 16-bit days, and it’s really only recently that I’ve come to love the Genesis, too. There’s really a lot of good stuff hidden beneath the mountains of old sports games!
But anyhow, my point here is that I’m exploring more of the Genesis era, so I recently purchased an X’Eye, and now I have the 32X. With all that in tow, I now have access to the entire Genesis/CD/32X library. Now I just need to get some 32X games, and more than one Sega CD game!
Impressions: Metal Gear (NES)
October 6, 2009 by Tim
I’m going to try something a little different… Instead of just posting reviews after I’ve completed a game, I’m going to post a sort of “gameplay diary” to record my thoughts as the game progresses. I’ve noticed my opinion of a game can change a lot as I go through various parts of it, so it might be fun to jot those thoughts down. So here we go!
After finishing Top Gear 2 and Wario Land, I needed a new game to play. So I asked my girlfriend to pick one out for me — of course, she had no idea what she was looking at, so it was essentially “pick a game from my game room at random.” It worked out pretty well, though, since Metal Gear was one game I’d been thinking I need to try out.
Anyhow, my first impression of the game is that everyone is right about the god-awful translation. I’d heard about it so many times that it had become cliché — just one of those things that everyone has to poke fun of because it’s the thing to do. Well, it’s not just a cliché. It’s genuinely bad. “First, attempt to contact missing our ‘Grey Fox.'” (?) “I feel asleep!” (??) “Uh-oh the truck have started to move!” (???) Ugh.
My second impression was how damn hard the game is. You start out virtually defenseless, with no weapon but your fists, and all kinds of enemies (including dogs) will kill you in no time. Frankly, it’s frustrating. But once I got into the right mindset, I started to “get” it. I started treating the game less as an action/adventure and more as a puzzle game. I stopped worrying about dying and just set the goal to find the best possible path through each section. If I died, no big deal, I just tried a different way. Thankfully, you keep all your items when you continue.
So at this point, I’m starting to actually like the game. I found the instruction book online and learned what some of the items do, I’ve found a virtually flawless path through the opening sections, I have some new items at my disposal, and I’m infiltrating the enemy base, so things are starting to pick up. I just hope I get a weapon soon…
Anyway, off to play it a bit more. I will keep updating this post as I get further along, so check back!
Update 1: Okay, this game is terrible. Really, seriously, terrible… Infinitely respawning (and seriously retarded) enemies; tedious gameplay that forces you to restart completely each time you die (or even when you use your password to continue); glitches galore (the game flat out hung on me three times so far). And yet, I’m hooked. For some reason, I just want to keep playing. I want to see what’s through the next door and around the next corner. I want to find that perfect path through each room that sneaks me past every obstacle without a scratch. I’m, somehow, enjoying all this?? I’m just wondering when the hell I’m gonna get a gun, though. I found explosives, remote-controlled missiles, and even a silencer, but no gun? I think I must have missed it. But at the same time, I’m not so sure I want to find it. I’m enjoying the pure-stealth approach. Well, maybe I’ll find the gun next time, since I have to restart from the beginning when I continue, anyway.
Update 2: Oh for crying out loud. I just finished a session of this game where I was really starting to get into it. It turns out I did, in fact, miss a handgun in my earlier playthroughs, so I finally found that — along with mines, a grenade launcher, a machine gun, and lots of other fun stuff. I even made it far enough that now I don’t have to start over from the beginning when I continue! But of course, just as I’m leaning towards “You know, this game’s not so bad… I actually rather like it,” it decides to just crash on me. After finding Grey Fox, finding all my supplies again, and taking down (what I’m assuming is) the first boss, I do something as simple as try to go to the next screen, and it just hangs. Fun! I wonder how much QA this game actually got. I’m leaning towards “None.” The best part? I’ll be crawling back for more tomorrow…
Update 3: Making good progress — No crashes or anything like that to report today! I suspect I’m just about halfway through, about to rescue Pettrovich. I found a whole bunch of POWs that I missed before, so I’ve reached the 3-star level and am pretty much unstoppable. Also, I decided to check out the original MSX version of the game, so I got the fan translations up and running on an emulator. Boy, is it better! The graphics and sound are way different. I’m noticing that the NES version is actually pretty faithful once you get past the awful opening jungle sequence, which doesn’t even exist in the MSX version. I’m thinking about doing an in-depth article to compare the Western version of the series (Metal Gear and Snake’s Revenge on NES) to the Japanese series (Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake on MSX). That could be fun, but I’d have to play through all four games first!
Update 4: Oh, Kojima… You got me. You got me good. I thought I was about to rescue Pettrovich, but nope… Plot twist! Anyway, onto Building 2. I’m a 4-star rank and making good progress. There’s much less stealth involved at this point, though — there’s no real point in avoiding enemies anymore, considering how much health, how many rations, how much ammo, and the body armor I have. The game is now more about exploration, finding the items you need to progress, and taking down big boss-type enemies. The password system is really getting on my nerves. Why would anyone design a 25-character password where you can’t back up and correct mistakes? One typo, and you have to actually finish filling out your (incorrect) code, then start all over again. Ugh!
RetroTube: Bound High video (Virtual Boy)
October 3, 2009 by Tim
Now that I’m starting to do more with the site the last few weeks, I figured I’d start up some of the old features I used to post. So with that said, I have a new RetroTube for you. This isn’t exactly new or groundbreaking footage or anything like that, but I stumbled upon it for the first time a couple of days ago and thought it was really interesting — especially since I’ve been recently reacquainted with the Virtual Boy after repairing mine last week.
There are a couple of holy grails in the Virtual Boy “scene” (what little scene there may be). Right before the system was killed off, a second generation of games was nearing release that were supposed to take better advantage of the hardware and really make the system shine. The two most anticipated games were Dragon Hopper and Bound High. Both were nearly (if not totally) complete, but were never released. As such, Virtual Boy fans still crave the games to this day, but with only a few accounts of sightings at tradeshows and a handful of low-quality screenshots to whet their appetites. Well, it turns out that Bound High has actually made it into the hands of at least one member of the public, and he’s posted the only extended video footage of the game that I’ve ever seen:
And a second (shorter, lower quality) video with a sample of the game’s sounds:
Maybe Dragon Hopper will be next?
A Virtual Spanish Surprise
September 30, 2009 by Tim
I recently bought a few Virtual Boy games off of eBay and they came in the mail yesterday. The interesting thing about this transaction is that I bought them from a seller in Mexico. The set came with Panic Bomber (loose), Wario Land (complete), and Teleroboxer (complete). Well, when they arrived, I discovered that not only were Wario Land and Teleroboxer complete, they were still sealed! But then, on closer inspection, I noticed they weren’t quite sealed. Both games were very purposefully slit open at the top. Collectors sometimes do this to keep everything in the most pristine possible condition, so I didn’t make much of it. Until I noticed that, strangely, the shrinkwrap wasn’t cut enough to actually open the flaps and get the games out. What was the point of that?
Well, once I opened them the rest of the way (yes, I’m a dirty sealed-games opener), it became obvious. Remember, the games came from a seller in Mexico. They’re identical in every way to the US release. In fact, they probably are the same as the US releases, except for one thing — someone went through and slid a printout of Spanish-language instructions into them! It’s pretty trivial, but as an enthusiast, I found it to be an interesting discovery. In fact, it made me realize I hadn’t even considered Mexico as much of a gaming market. I wonder if this is how they get most of their games? Hand-me-downs from the US, stuffed with Spanish instructions as almost an afterthought?
Anyway, for you collectors out there, I guess there are a few extra pieces of official documentation you have to pick up to have a complete set! Have a look:
Out of This World (SNES / 3DO)
September 28, 2009 by Tim
Out of This World was a landmark game when it came out in 1991. By attempting to bridge the gap between cinema and games, it pushed the medium in new directions, but at the same time, it succumbed to what’s probably the industry’s biggest insecurity — the fact that it’s not film. How many games have attempted to be “cinematic” throughout the years? And how many have truly succeeded? Were all those FMV games in the early days of the CD format really better because they were movie-like? Is Metal Gear Solid the pinnacle of gaming because of Hideo Kojima’s obvious desire to be a director, rather than a game producer? How many “cinematic” games are actually made better by the fact that they’re movie-like? Maybe a more relevant question might be, “do games even need to be cinematic?”
Regardless of the relationship between movies and games, film’s influence in Out of This World is obvious. But instead of taking the obvious route and filling the game with FMV and D-list actors, Out of This World is a little more subtle. Instead of being a playable movie, it simply takes many of the themes of cinema and applies them to games — story, the creation of tension, attachment to characters, action, a complementary soundtrack, and so on. All of these were groundbreaking for the time, and as a result, Out of This World holds a special place in gaming history for many people.
But calling it a “groundbreaking” or “watershed” or “landmark” game doesn’t necessarily tell you what really matters — does it stand the test of time? That’s a difficult one to answer. Taken in context of the time it came out, it’s fantastic. But 18 years later, does it still hold its own? Frankly, it’s a tough call. To be sure, I like Out of This World. I think it’s a very interesting game and well worth a play-through. But at the same time, it’s definitely showing its age and its flaws are a little more apparent than they may have once been.
Alex Kidd: High Tech World (Sega Master System)
September 22, 2009 by Tim
Having been a Nintendo kid, I find the Alex Kidd series kind of strange. If I had to use one word to describe it, I think it would be “disjointed.” This probably stems from the fact that a couple of entires in the series are actually just rebranded versions of other games. (In fact, Sega’s other early franchise series, Wonder Boy, has a similar history.) The series kicked off in a not-so-disjointed fashion with a couple of standard platformers: Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars. But then it just turned kind of weird after that. There was an odd Japan-only BMX game, which I know almost nothing about, and then there were Alex Kidd: High Tech World and Alex Kidd in Shinobi World.
Alex Kidd: High Tech world is actually a rebranded version of a Japanese Master System game called “Anmitsu Hime: From Amakara Castle,” a game based off of some anime I’ve never heard of. Naturally, the US anime-audience being what it was in the 80s, that was not going to sell over here. So, Sega slapped their mascot onto the game and called it a day.
But, what is it, exactly? It’s actually a fairly interesting combination of adventure and platforming. But instead of being an adventure/platformer, it’s literally a set of alternating sections of gameplay. Sega also managed to throw a few tongue-in-cheek self-references into the mix, too. In fact, the basic premise is that you’ve just found out from your friend that there’s a new arcade in town and you really want to go play the new Sega arcade games. And you have to get there before 5:00, with the clock ticking the entire time.
A Boy and His Blob (NES)
September 14, 2009 by Tim
I like side-scrollers. I like adventure games. I like “obscure” games that show up on “hidden gems” lists. I like quirky games. So it all stands to reason that I would like A Boy and His Blob, right? Well, sure enough, I do. No stylistic twist to get your attention here, I just plain like it. It’s a good game. Flawed, but good.
I had never heard of A Boy and His Blob (or, even its full title, “David Crane’s A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia”) back in the day, let alone actually having played it. In fact, I was only clued into its existence sometime over the last couple of years. I noticed that as I read a few “hidden gems” and “overlooked games” lists around the web and various retro games forums, this one kept popping up. I knew it was an NES game, I knew it was an adventure game, and I knew you were a boy with blob that changed shapes when you fed it jellybeans (yes, jellybeans). Beyond that, I didn’t know much else.
So with a fresh mindset and little in the way of expectations, I dove into A Boy and His Blob. And then I got stuck. After about five minutes of playing the game. So I turned it off, and came back later. And I got stuck again. At the same spot. So I turned it off and came back later. But this time, I was determined to actually figure the damn game out. And this is when it all started to click and I “got” the game. I took notes on what all the different jellybeans did, I started making a map, and I remembered what Metroid taught me: never assume a dead-end is actually a dead-end.
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