The Internet: Cor Blimey this SNES Mini sure looks exciting, I sure hope I can get one for a fair price and not from a scalper on eBay.
The 1337s: Phnar phnar you could just put a Raspberry Pi in a 3D-printed shell.
What a bunch of clever clever parrots. You didn't think of that yourself. You saw someone make that retort (they didn't think of it either) and sided with them because it makes you feel superior to the people who want to buy the SNES mini for whatever reason.
Here are some equivalencies:
Thing 1: I need a new car, I'm going to visit a dealer today.
Thing 2: Just get some wood and an electric motor.
Thing 1: I'm going to an Italian restaurant for some true Italian pasta.
Thing 2: Must buy a ready meal.
Thing 1: I'm buying a PlayStation 4. I don't know anything about computers.
Thing 2: Just build your own PC.
Thing 1: Can you help me choose between these two pairs of Nike running shoes?
Thing 2: Just wrap your feet in bandages.
Friday, 7 July 2017
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
Top 10: NES Games
As it is wedNESday as you wallies call it on Twitter, let me look back on my history with the Nintendo Entertainment System.
I knew three people who owned one. One was the son of my parents friends, a couple of years younger than me and when I was dragged along to their house for the day we'd enjoy some gaming. Another was a friend at school who owned Super Mario Bros and Snake Rattle n Roll. And another was my best friend through secondary school who owned lots of games. His dad had a good job.
I've owned a NES for ten years or so but never owned many cartridges. They're too easy to emulate, which in turn produces a superior experience today.
I also got my hands on a NES mini last September, which is a fantastic way to experience the games today, on today's TVs.
As usual these are games that not only excited my at the time, but that I still enjoy playing today.
10. Battletoads
Brutally difficult right from the start, with slippy controls and tragic death drops, there is something strangely compelling about Battletoads. The characters are fun, levels are varied, and hammering B as enemies crumble at your fists is tremendous fun.
9. Snake Rattle n Roll
The rock n roll soundtrack that influenced the game's name was certainly part of the appeal as a child, but beyond that we have a platform game that plays like an advanced version of the game we all enjoyed on our Nokias at the turn of the millennium. Eat to gain length, and gain enough weight to open the exit. Fun twists on the idea make this an essential title.
8. Castlevania
Later Castlevania games improved on the formula, but this is my favourite on NES and set the overall tone and design that the series would follow for some years.
It has it's unfair, frustrating, deaths of course, but the music, action and levels make it worth overcoming.
7. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
Oft derided, this game sits in a special part of my heart simply because of its subject matter. The Turtles were huge in my childhood, and this was the first game I and my friends could enjoy that let us BE the Turtles.
It's a hot mess and stinks of being thrown together as quickly as possible to maximise profit, but it has oodles of charm and I still enjoy playing it today.
6. Super Mario Bros 3
What?? Mario 3 at number 6? Surely not? It's the best NES game evah, isn't it? At least according to Twitter it is. But this isn't Twitter's list, it's mine.
I can't deny that Mario 3 deserves a place in every NES collection, or that it is a fantastic game. But it's not my favourite NES game, nor my favourite Mario game on NES, as you'll come to see.
The levels are short and very sweet, the whole aesthetic made us think again on what the NES could do, and the music is (as is standard for the series) fantastically memorable.
But it's not the best one. Shut up.
5. Mega Man 2
Another popular option. I thought about other Mega Man games for my list, but number two is the best of the bunch. Somehow the stars aligned and we have a near perfect balance between high difficulty and clever accessibility.
Level themes are varied and the bosses are either fun or ridiculously hard depending on if you select the correct weapon for them.
4. Bubble Bobble
Back in the late 1980s my cousin had inherited his dad's Atari 2600. The big old TV they had in their loft to use with it was knackered - you had to turn it on and wait 10 minutes for the tiny white dot to wake up and give you an image. One of the games we played the most was Bubble Bobble, making our way to level 100 was a triumphant moment, until the game told us we had to go backwards towards level 1 again!
Bubble Bobble for NES is one of the finest conversions of the title, and one of the finest arcade conversions on the console. The music, graphics and importantly the levels are intact and still fun to play through today.
3. Super Mario Bros
I told you we'd come back to this series. And what a game! Truth be told I'm more likely to play the SNES All-Stars version, but whatever.
Platforming perfected, everything about this game was put together from perfect parts, and result is a speed runner's favourite. Even today I play this more often than anything else, whenever I have just a few spare minutes.
2. Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers
I must confess to being quite unfamiliar with the TV show. I have vague memories of it, but it certainly wasn't one of my favourites.
This game, however, was the main go-to for a friend and I for multiplayer gaming. Jumping around, throwing crates at enemies, falling to our death on climbing sections. Such fun. As was (and maybe still is) typical for Disney games, this was a joyful experience. Bright colours, brighter music, and really capturing the essence of the property.
Just as much fun on your own (well, almost), this is in my list for one very good reason - It's very good!
1.
Dun dun duuuuuuuuun!
I bet you didn't see that coming, did you? No-one's favourite Mario game. All the clever clever parrots want to tell us that this is in fact a reskinned Doki Doki Panic and therefore not a "true" Mario game. And yet here it is, proudly proclaimed as RetroRam's most favouritest NES game of all time in the world evah!
There's a story behind this. Way back when, I used to rent my babysitter'a brother's NES along with this one game. My mum felt that video games were bad and should be limited, so I would get up in the night and play while everyone else slept. This only helped improve the bond I felt to the game.
The biggest difference between this and it's series peers is the ability to select between Mario, Luigi (jumps higher/farther), Toad (pulls up roots faster) and Peach (floats for a while after jumping). This gives you different methods to beat each level, or if you're clever and learn what stage is next you can simply choose the most suitable character. Or just use Peach all the time and float between platforms.
I wonder. Assuming this character select is true to Doki Doki Panic, then it is this game that made sure that Luigi would jump higher and have more inertia than his brother. This difference in control continues to this day, and indeed made an appearance in The Lost Levels - otherwise known as Super Mario Bros 2 in Japan only!
Boss fights are more exciting than in Super Mario Bros too, requiring some fine dexterity from the player. Birdo is fun too. A transvestite alien thing who spits eggs to you from his snout. Jumping on said eggs and returning them to sender is great fun.
I do play SMB and SMB3 more frequently these days, but only because they lend themselves better to speed running when time is short. SMB2, then, is perhaps a thinking man's Mario. One to savour, taking your time with it.
Honourable Mentions
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles 2: The Arcade Game - a far from perfect conversion, but still the Turtles arcade game, playable at home!
Nintendo World Cup - ok, this is crap now. It was probably crap then, but in its time it was still a lot of fun, and probably the best football game on consoles until the 16-bits started to enjoy good FIFA titles.
I knew three people who owned one. One was the son of my parents friends, a couple of years younger than me and when I was dragged along to their house for the day we'd enjoy some gaming. Another was a friend at school who owned Super Mario Bros and Snake Rattle n Roll. And another was my best friend through secondary school who owned lots of games. His dad had a good job.
I've owned a NES for ten years or so but never owned many cartridges. They're too easy to emulate, which in turn produces a superior experience today.
I also got my hands on a NES mini last September, which is a fantastic way to experience the games today, on today's TVs.
As usual these are games that not only excited my at the time, but that I still enjoy playing today.
10. Battletoads
Brutally difficult right from the start, with slippy controls and tragic death drops, there is something strangely compelling about Battletoads. The characters are fun, levels are varied, and hammering B as enemies crumble at your fists is tremendous fun.
9. Snake Rattle n Roll
The rock n roll soundtrack that influenced the game's name was certainly part of the appeal as a child, but beyond that we have a platform game that plays like an advanced version of the game we all enjoyed on our Nokias at the turn of the millennium. Eat to gain length, and gain enough weight to open the exit. Fun twists on the idea make this an essential title.
8. Castlevania
Later Castlevania games improved on the formula, but this is my favourite on NES and set the overall tone and design that the series would follow for some years.
It has it's unfair, frustrating, deaths of course, but the music, action and levels make it worth overcoming.
7. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
Oft derided, this game sits in a special part of my heart simply because of its subject matter. The Turtles were huge in my childhood, and this was the first game I and my friends could enjoy that let us BE the Turtles.
It's a hot mess and stinks of being thrown together as quickly as possible to maximise profit, but it has oodles of charm and I still enjoy playing it today.
6. Super Mario Bros 3
What?? Mario 3 at number 6? Surely not? It's the best NES game evah, isn't it? At least according to Twitter it is. But this isn't Twitter's list, it's mine.
I can't deny that Mario 3 deserves a place in every NES collection, or that it is a fantastic game. But it's not my favourite NES game, nor my favourite Mario game on NES, as you'll come to see.
The levels are short and very sweet, the whole aesthetic made us think again on what the NES could do, and the music is (as is standard for the series) fantastically memorable.
But it's not the best one. Shut up.
5. Mega Man 2
Another popular option. I thought about other Mega Man games for my list, but number two is the best of the bunch. Somehow the stars aligned and we have a near perfect balance between high difficulty and clever accessibility.
Level themes are varied and the bosses are either fun or ridiculously hard depending on if you select the correct weapon for them.
4. Bubble Bobble
Back in the late 1980s my cousin had inherited his dad's Atari 2600. The big old TV they had in their loft to use with it was knackered - you had to turn it on and wait 10 minutes for the tiny white dot to wake up and give you an image. One of the games we played the most was Bubble Bobble, making our way to level 100 was a triumphant moment, until the game told us we had to go backwards towards level 1 again!
Bubble Bobble for NES is one of the finest conversions of the title, and one of the finest arcade conversions on the console. The music, graphics and importantly the levels are intact and still fun to play through today.
3. Super Mario Bros
I told you we'd come back to this series. And what a game! Truth be told I'm more likely to play the SNES All-Stars version, but whatever.
Platforming perfected, everything about this game was put together from perfect parts, and result is a speed runner's favourite. Even today I play this more often than anything else, whenever I have just a few spare minutes.
2. Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers
I must confess to being quite unfamiliar with the TV show. I have vague memories of it, but it certainly wasn't one of my favourites.
This game, however, was the main go-to for a friend and I for multiplayer gaming. Jumping around, throwing crates at enemies, falling to our death on climbing sections. Such fun. As was (and maybe still is) typical for Disney games, this was a joyful experience. Bright colours, brighter music, and really capturing the essence of the property.
Just as much fun on your own (well, almost), this is in my list for one very good reason - It's very good!
1.
Dun dun duuuuuuuuun!
I bet you didn't see that coming, did you? No-one's favourite Mario game. All the clever clever parrots want to tell us that this is in fact a reskinned Doki Doki Panic and therefore not a "true" Mario game. And yet here it is, proudly proclaimed as RetroRam's most favouritest NES game of all time in the world evah!
There's a story behind this. Way back when, I used to rent my babysitter'a brother's NES along with this one game. My mum felt that video games were bad and should be limited, so I would get up in the night and play while everyone else slept. This only helped improve the bond I felt to the game.
The biggest difference between this and it's series peers is the ability to select between Mario, Luigi (jumps higher/farther), Toad (pulls up roots faster) and Peach (floats for a while after jumping). This gives you different methods to beat each level, or if you're clever and learn what stage is next you can simply choose the most suitable character. Or just use Peach all the time and float between platforms.
I wonder. Assuming this character select is true to Doki Doki Panic, then it is this game that made sure that Luigi would jump higher and have more inertia than his brother. This difference in control continues to this day, and indeed made an appearance in The Lost Levels - otherwise known as Super Mario Bros 2 in Japan only!
Boss fights are more exciting than in Super Mario Bros too, requiring some fine dexterity from the player. Birdo is fun too. A transvestite alien thing who spits eggs to you from his snout. Jumping on said eggs and returning them to sender is great fun.
I do play SMB and SMB3 more frequently these days, but only because they lend themselves better to speed running when time is short. SMB2, then, is perhaps a thinking man's Mario. One to savour, taking your time with it.
Honourable Mentions
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles 2: The Arcade Game - a far from perfect conversion, but still the Turtles arcade game, playable at home!
Nintendo World Cup - ok, this is crap now. It was probably crap then, but in its time it was still a lot of fun, and probably the best football game on consoles until the 16-bits started to enjoy good FIFA titles.
Tuesday, 4 July 2017
Top 10: Gameboy Advance Games
I enjoyed revisiting Super Nintendo for my recent Top 10 SNES games article, so wanted to quickly move onto another favourite system of mine - Gameboy Advance!
It was the first system which I was able to really enjoy, having some real disposable income to throw at it. I had also by then befriended my local game shop and was not ashamed to trade in finished games to get new ones.
So with no further ado - my ten favourite GBA games - and as with the SNES list before, these games were not only enjoyed back in the day, but hold up and are enjoyed today.
10. Sonic Advance
Sonic the Hedgehog starred in some of my favourite games of the 1990s. Certainly the first two Mega Drive games and the first on Game Gear / Master System still get played regularly in this house. This is one of (or the?) first times a Sonic game appeared on Nintendo Hardware - the difference between this and most others is that this is good. Great even!
The sense of speed is there, but with tight controls and clever level design. The art style is more modern than the Mega Drive games, and importantly you can save your progress - essential for handheld gaming.
9. Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
I have reservations about the Mario Advance series in general - more or less summed up as "cheeky Nintendo charging full price for one game at a time". However, this was my first opportunity to own, and therefore to get into, Super Mario World, and enjoying it on my beloved Gameboy Advance was a win for me.
You all know the game and what makes it special. Except now it was in a handheld console, for which it was a perfect fit.
8. Mario Kart Super Circuit
The second of a few Mario related titles on this list, Mario Kart Super Circuit is a great addition to the series.
Looking and playing much like its SNES counterpart, but improved in many ways, there are 20 tracks available - and then the 20 from Super Mario Kart unlocked by playing through all the stages again once you win the Special Cup. That's pretty generous for a Gameboy game!
The music isn't as memorable as in other versions, and it is not as good as some later full-3D additions, but the game overall is a lot of fun and offers enough to keep you coming back for a while.
7. Wario Ware, Inc. : Mega Microgame$
A random purchase at the time, this unexpected pickup became one of my favourite games of all time.
A series of 2-second mini games, which threw a title at you and gave you next to no time to work out what was going on, what you needed to do, and then to do it. Addictive gameplay and inventive craziness had me coming back for more and more and more. As you get to know the mini games you will find yourself in the zone, blasting through them as they get faster and faster, until you inevitably fail - then start again and aim for a new high score.
Future games improved, or at least added to, the formula, and all are worth a look, though the Wii U title Game & Wario leaves a lot to desired. Start with this GBA title and you won't be disappointed.
6. Metroid Fusion
I was torn about adding this one to this list. It belongs to a list of games hyped far beyond my understanding. But it is fun, and is certainly better than Metroid Zero.
Typical "Metroidvania" gameplay in 2D, it provided a break from Metroid Primes's slow-paced 3D universe. Exploring a labyrinth as you unlock the usual powers, the real difference in this title comes in the form of SA-X - a clone of Samus herself that mimics her at full power, whilst you control her at no power... whilst scripted, the sections in which SA-X stalks and chases you are difficult and pulse-inducing.
The game is short at just a few hours, and I remember returning it on Monday having bought it on Friday. However I have since replayed the game a few times and it still holds interest as much as most other Metroid games.
5. Mario Golf: Advance Tour
I like golf games. I have fond memories of playing Links 2004 for Xbox online against my friend Mike, and of enjoying Everybody's Golf on PSP with my wife. Go for a birdy!
Mario Golf, as you'd expect, adds a little interest to the formula in the shape of the titular plumber and his friends (and enemies), but it is at heart a fairly standard golf game. Hit A to start your shot, hit A to set power. There is some depth in control of your shots using various button combinations, and all in all it's a solid golf sim.
It is all wrapped in a light RPG blanket which adds next to nothing to the game other than casting you as a newcomer looking to claim trophies for each of the courses.
It may be ultimately quite shallow, but I still find myself compelled to play through the tournaments every now and then.
4. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
There are three Castlevania games on GBA. The first, Circle of the Moon is a brilliant title. The second, Harmony of Dissonance, is less so. Aria of Sorrow is the third series title on the system and improves a lot on its forebears. It also leads into my favourite of them all - Dawn of Sorrow on DS, a direct sequel.
You know the drill. Much like Metroid Fusion you start off weak and with minimal access to the map, defeating bosses and unlocking powers to grant further access. You also level up in a light RPG manner as you defeat more and more enemies.
The gameplay is deep, and it will last you several hours. Controls are perfect, and the story fun.
This could have been number one. It was close. It's just surpassed by the DS sequels - mostly due to the hardware itself granting a second screen for a permanent map display.
3. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
A basic RPG at heart, taking cues from Paper Mario, Super Star Saga's real strengths are its story and its irreverence for the Super Mario universe.
In a twist of genius you control Mario and Luigi at the same time. Luigi follows Mario, and actions are assigned to the A button for Mario and B for Luigi. Different actions are unlocked as you go, allowing you to access different areas.
The characters are a joy to behold and really add to the fun of the story. Perfectly formed and only the first of several in an ongoing series. Any of them are worth picking up, but you might as well start at the start and work through them all.
2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Wow. Just wow.
Obviously the GBA hardware was not going to give us a convincing 3D Tony Hawk Game as on PlayStation, but what a great idea to go for an isometric view. Sometimes it can be confusing to see the depth of the stages, but by and large they have been cleverly laid out for the best effect.
Essentially a portable version of the PlayStation game, there's a lot of fun and replay value here.
The soundtrack is of course missing all its nu-metal and pop punk glory, replaced by serviceable midi-like rock n roll. All tricks are present, with ollies and grinds handled my A and B and flip and grab tricks assigned to L and R. It takes some getting used to, especially with hands as big as mine, but once you're comfortable it's as enjoyable as in its big brother.
It just goes to show that a little bit of clever thought can condense bugger games successfully to smaller hardware without necessarily losing any of the magic.
1. Warioland 4
I was there when we were first introduced to Wario. Chasing him down in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, he was simply an evil guy to give you a reason for doing what you were doing.
A little later and Super Mario Land 3 carried the subtitle "Warioland". An odd thing to happen, though bot unheard of, for the antagonist to take over a series. Handheld Mario didn't even recover until years later with DS's New Super Mario Bros.
Two more Warioland titles followed on Gameboy and Gameboy Color before the fourth landed on Gameboy Advance. Taking everything that had been laid down before - Wario's insatiable greed for treasure being the main motivation - Nintendo crafted one of their finest 2D handheld platforming titles.
The basic idea is that Wario makes his way through a level, collecting as much treasure as he can along the way. There are also four pieces of a gem to collect - collect them all to unlock the door to the world boss - and a CD which unlocks a piece of music for the sound player accessible in the menu. Finally a key is hidden in the stage which unlocks the door to the next stage. If you finish the level without finding the key, you will have to replay it and search a little harder.
At the end of each stage is a time bomb (usually at the end). Jump in it to open the stage's exit and race against time - the exit is found at the beginning of the stage, and you must get there before the time runs out of lose all your treasure from the level. Just for fun the level layout will change, taking you in a different route on the way back. Sometimes, if you haven't found all the collectibles in the way into the stage, you will find the remainder in the alternative route out.
This is a beautifully formed game, and goes a long way to make up for the shameful lack of an original Super Mario hame on the system.
Honourable Mentions
Another system with a LOT of great games. Here are a couple that would have been on my list if it weren't for the others.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past;
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 4 - These two could have been in my GBA top 10, for the same reasons as mentioned in my SNES top 10. They scale so well to the GBA hardware and are as much fun as they used to be in their original forms.
Golden Sun - A lot of fun, and well-loved for a reason. Sometimes obtuse but the story is enjoyable and the combat fun.
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap - another Zelda game, and the only new release from the series on GBA. A weak alternative to ALttP but still has taken charms. Core mechanic revolves around shrinking down to mini size.
Kuru Kuru Kururin - a strange game. You control a rotating stick through obstacle courses through which it barely fits, with limited control over its rotation speed. It is a quirky game, quite difficult to control, but fun once you get the hang of it.
It was the first system which I was able to really enjoy, having some real disposable income to throw at it. I had also by then befriended my local game shop and was not ashamed to trade in finished games to get new ones.
So with no further ado - my ten favourite GBA games - and as with the SNES list before, these games were not only enjoyed back in the day, but hold up and are enjoyed today.
10. Sonic Advance
Sonic the Hedgehog starred in some of my favourite games of the 1990s. Certainly the first two Mega Drive games and the first on Game Gear / Master System still get played regularly in this house. This is one of (or the?) first times a Sonic game appeared on Nintendo Hardware - the difference between this and most others is that this is good. Great even!
The sense of speed is there, but with tight controls and clever level design. The art style is more modern than the Mega Drive games, and importantly you can save your progress - essential for handheld gaming.
9. Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
I have reservations about the Mario Advance series in general - more or less summed up as "cheeky Nintendo charging full price for one game at a time". However, this was my first opportunity to own, and therefore to get into, Super Mario World, and enjoying it on my beloved Gameboy Advance was a win for me.
You all know the game and what makes it special. Except now it was in a handheld console, for which it was a perfect fit.
8. Mario Kart Super Circuit
The second of a few Mario related titles on this list, Mario Kart Super Circuit is a great addition to the series.
Looking and playing much like its SNES counterpart, but improved in many ways, there are 20 tracks available - and then the 20 from Super Mario Kart unlocked by playing through all the stages again once you win the Special Cup. That's pretty generous for a Gameboy game!
The music isn't as memorable as in other versions, and it is not as good as some later full-3D additions, but the game overall is a lot of fun and offers enough to keep you coming back for a while.
7. Wario Ware, Inc. : Mega Microgame$
A random purchase at the time, this unexpected pickup became one of my favourite games of all time.
A series of 2-second mini games, which threw a title at you and gave you next to no time to work out what was going on, what you needed to do, and then to do it. Addictive gameplay and inventive craziness had me coming back for more and more and more. As you get to know the mini games you will find yourself in the zone, blasting through them as they get faster and faster, until you inevitably fail - then start again and aim for a new high score.
Future games improved, or at least added to, the formula, and all are worth a look, though the Wii U title Game & Wario leaves a lot to desired. Start with this GBA title and you won't be disappointed.
6. Metroid Fusion
I was torn about adding this one to this list. It belongs to a list of games hyped far beyond my understanding. But it is fun, and is certainly better than Metroid Zero.
Typical "Metroidvania" gameplay in 2D, it provided a break from Metroid Primes's slow-paced 3D universe. Exploring a labyrinth as you unlock the usual powers, the real difference in this title comes in the form of SA-X - a clone of Samus herself that mimics her at full power, whilst you control her at no power... whilst scripted, the sections in which SA-X stalks and chases you are difficult and pulse-inducing.
The game is short at just a few hours, and I remember returning it on Monday having bought it on Friday. However I have since replayed the game a few times and it still holds interest as much as most other Metroid games.
5. Mario Golf: Advance Tour
I like golf games. I have fond memories of playing Links 2004 for Xbox online against my friend Mike, and of enjoying Everybody's Golf on PSP with my wife. Go for a birdy!
Mario Golf, as you'd expect, adds a little interest to the formula in the shape of the titular plumber and his friends (and enemies), but it is at heart a fairly standard golf game. Hit A to start your shot, hit A to set power. There is some depth in control of your shots using various button combinations, and all in all it's a solid golf sim.
It is all wrapped in a light RPG blanket which adds next to nothing to the game other than casting you as a newcomer looking to claim trophies for each of the courses.
It may be ultimately quite shallow, but I still find myself compelled to play through the tournaments every now and then.
4. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
There are three Castlevania games on GBA. The first, Circle of the Moon is a brilliant title. The second, Harmony of Dissonance, is less so. Aria of Sorrow is the third series title on the system and improves a lot on its forebears. It also leads into my favourite of them all - Dawn of Sorrow on DS, a direct sequel.
You know the drill. Much like Metroid Fusion you start off weak and with minimal access to the map, defeating bosses and unlocking powers to grant further access. You also level up in a light RPG manner as you defeat more and more enemies.
The gameplay is deep, and it will last you several hours. Controls are perfect, and the story fun.
This could have been number one. It was close. It's just surpassed by the DS sequels - mostly due to the hardware itself granting a second screen for a permanent map display.
3. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
A basic RPG at heart, taking cues from Paper Mario, Super Star Saga's real strengths are its story and its irreverence for the Super Mario universe.
In a twist of genius you control Mario and Luigi at the same time. Luigi follows Mario, and actions are assigned to the A button for Mario and B for Luigi. Different actions are unlocked as you go, allowing you to access different areas.
The characters are a joy to behold and really add to the fun of the story. Perfectly formed and only the first of several in an ongoing series. Any of them are worth picking up, but you might as well start at the start and work through them all.
2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Wow. Just wow.
Obviously the GBA hardware was not going to give us a convincing 3D Tony Hawk Game as on PlayStation, but what a great idea to go for an isometric view. Sometimes it can be confusing to see the depth of the stages, but by and large they have been cleverly laid out for the best effect.
Essentially a portable version of the PlayStation game, there's a lot of fun and replay value here.
The soundtrack is of course missing all its nu-metal and pop punk glory, replaced by serviceable midi-like rock n roll. All tricks are present, with ollies and grinds handled my A and B and flip and grab tricks assigned to L and R. It takes some getting used to, especially with hands as big as mine, but once you're comfortable it's as enjoyable as in its big brother.
It just goes to show that a little bit of clever thought can condense bugger games successfully to smaller hardware without necessarily losing any of the magic.
1. Warioland 4
I was there when we were first introduced to Wario. Chasing him down in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, he was simply an evil guy to give you a reason for doing what you were doing.
A little later and Super Mario Land 3 carried the subtitle "Warioland". An odd thing to happen, though bot unheard of, for the antagonist to take over a series. Handheld Mario didn't even recover until years later with DS's New Super Mario Bros.
Two more Warioland titles followed on Gameboy and Gameboy Color before the fourth landed on Gameboy Advance. Taking everything that had been laid down before - Wario's insatiable greed for treasure being the main motivation - Nintendo crafted one of their finest 2D handheld platforming titles.
The basic idea is that Wario makes his way through a level, collecting as much treasure as he can along the way. There are also four pieces of a gem to collect - collect them all to unlock the door to the world boss - and a CD which unlocks a piece of music for the sound player accessible in the menu. Finally a key is hidden in the stage which unlocks the door to the next stage. If you finish the level without finding the key, you will have to replay it and search a little harder.
At the end of each stage is a time bomb (usually at the end). Jump in it to open the stage's exit and race against time - the exit is found at the beginning of the stage, and you must get there before the time runs out of lose all your treasure from the level. Just for fun the level layout will change, taking you in a different route on the way back. Sometimes, if you haven't found all the collectibles in the way into the stage, you will find the remainder in the alternative route out.
This is a beautifully formed game, and goes a long way to make up for the shameful lack of an original Super Mario hame on the system.
Honourable Mentions
Another system with a LOT of great games. Here are a couple that would have been on my list if it weren't for the others.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past;
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 4 - These two could have been in my GBA top 10, for the same reasons as mentioned in my SNES top 10. They scale so well to the GBA hardware and are as much fun as they used to be in their original forms.
Golden Sun - A lot of fun, and well-loved for a reason. Sometimes obtuse but the story is enjoyable and the combat fun.
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap - another Zelda game, and the only new release from the series on GBA. A weak alternative to ALttP but still has taken charms. Core mechanic revolves around shrinking down to mini size.
Kuru Kuru Kururin - a strange game. You control a rotating stick through obstacle courses through which it barely fits, with limited control over its rotation speed. It is a quirky game, quite difficult to control, but fun once you get the hang of it.
Monday, 3 July 2017
Top 10: SNES Games
I've been posting a lot these last couple of days. Probably badly written, probably full of spelling mistakes. Our (13 months old today) baby boy has had some trouble sleeping, which means we've been having some trouble sleeping, which means I've taken the opportunity to put some time into this blog. There's plenty to write about, plenty of ground to re-cover with my own perspective which is oh so often different to the whitewash standard in our little community. However, I'm not sure how different this particular list will be to the "normal". I'm certainly not going to select my top 10 SNES games based on cool factor to impress you lot. This will be an honest list, based on my experiences with the games in question.
A little history. As a child I got to play friends' consoles and computers. NES, Master System, Spectrum, Commodore 64. It was until Super Nintendo that I had one of my own - with Super Mario All Stars included. Now bear in mind that when I got my SNES I was around 13 years old, my family was poor, and my pocket money was £1 a week. I had to save for a year to buy a game, so each purchase had to count. Otherwise I experienced games by borrowing from friends, or later in life when cash flow was less of a problem. This list will incorporate games from both periods of my life, and is based on lasting appeal and not just what I loved then, but don't necessarily enjoy today.
Incidentally this was to be a top 5, but that was ridiculously hard to shortlist.
10. F-Zero
Just imagine what this game meant in 1991. Nothing like it had come before, certainly outside of the arcades. The sense of speed is tangible and the atmosphere created by the sound effects and the awesome music was new and exciting. It is often complained that this is single player only, though rumour has it that attempts to create a multi-player follow up led to fan favourite Super Mario Kart, and you start to understand the importance of F-Zero. It compares well to Wipeout, albeit in a time before "true" 3D where fancy schmancy scaling tricks were required to create what we see here.
Still enjoyable today, it earns its place on this list and would be higher if not for the incredible quality of what follows.
9. Starwing
Or Starfox elsewhere. Starwing introduced us devotees of Nintendo to proper 3D. Wireframe models perhaps, but they work here. The entire package is near perfect, with charm up to the eyeballs and plenty of replay value with various routes through the game. Its sequel, Lylat Wars (StarFox 64) came to N64 with full textures all round, but it (and subsequent games) failed to capture the magic that the first game brought to SNES.
8. Earthworm Jim
Ah Earthworm Jim. Another title that brought with it lovely, new, exciting flavours to our beloved games machines. It sold on the graphics, but we stayed for the inventive gameplay and level design. An unprecedented degree of variety takes us through the slightly random tale of a regular Earthworm (called Jim...) who stumbles upon a suit of armour that takes him on a mission to defeat Queen Slug-For-A-Butt (in remembering this from 20 years ago rather than looking it up, but something like that).
The characters you meet on the journey are tremendous fun, as is controlling Jim himself. Jumping, shooting and whipping (with Jim's body being the whip) are all enjoyable and the boss fights are exciting. The game is difficult and comes from an era with limited lives, limited continues, and no save option. Finishing it then is an exercise in skill and brings a feeling of great accomplishment. Sadly the sequels didn't live up to the pure gameplay of the original.
7. Stunt Race FX
Another showcase for the power of Nintendo's Super FX chip, this racing game was something different to others we loved on the system. Controls are sloppy and the framerate is low, but the overall package is pure joy. The soundtrack is chipper (though I remember I used to listen to The Wonder Stuff's Greatest Hits album a lot with this game) and gets you pumped up for racing. A bonus game has you drive an articulated lorry around a track that it doesn't want to go around in order to earn a bonus. The various cars, each win their own handling and speed characteristics, also have their own personality communicated through their headlight eyes.
A secondary mode has you rushing through obstacle courses. The wobbly controls mean I never got far with these, but they were fun in their way.
6. Super Metroid
Probably the first of my list that is on everyone's list, Super Metroid is special indeed. I've mentioned atmosphere before in this article, and it is an important factor in my enjoyment of games from adventures to FIFA, and this game has it in spades!
Essentially an exercise in navigating a maze, finding power-ups to open new routes through it, and killing some big bosses on the way, it's easy to get lost. The enjoyment of playing the game today is still strong despite generally knowing my way around, and there is a beauty in its design that this is the case. Speed running and trying for a faster time is fun - the whole thing can be done in around 4 hours, but it will take several times that for newcomers.
5. Donkey Kong Country
Another game sold on its graphics, but loved for its content. Everything about this title comes together into one big, warm bundle of magic.
DKC was a massive game when it released. Rare were beloved before but I'd posit that this was the game that truly put them on the map. Once again, everything about it just came together to create a memorable, challenging, enjoyable adventure. The minecart stages are really hard even as well practiced as I am now, and the inertia on the character, particularly after a roll, can lead to trouble, though this is in your hands at all times with responsive controls failing because of your poor reactions.
In the U.K. the game shipped with a CD called "Go Ape!" which included a selection of indie hits of the time. It introduced me to two bands I still hold dear today - Radiohead and Pop Will Eat Itself. It was a great bit of marketing, if slightly random.
The game and its direct sequels were ported to Gameboy and Gameboy Advance, and of course pseudo sequels appeared on Wii, Wii U and 3DS in recent years, but its naturally the SNES original that holds the crown, for me at least.
4. Unirally
Even in my youth I had a taste for the obscure, and when I saw this I knew I had to try it. It didn't disappoint.
Racing as a riderless, sentient unicycle, you race against opponents, performing tricks to increase your speed. The tracks are colour-coded to warn of hazards, and bad or unfortunate timing would result in lost time. Part platformer, part racer, this was a true exercise in level memorisation as you played again and again to improve your records.
The various stage types included A to B sprints, multi-lap races, and point-scoring trick levels with half pipes and ramps.
Rock n Roll was your soundtrack, and it was great, punctuated by the sound of successful (or not) tricks.
This is one game that could use a reboot right about now, with its 2D presentation and clever, tight mechanics. I lost hours and hours to this, and I don't regret them one bit.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Now we get to the one super obvious Super Nintendo title, one that surely exists on anyone's top ten. Often cited as the best Zelda game, and I won't disagree.
This was the second game I ever owned for the SNES, picked up preowned for £25 at SRS, a local camera and computer shop. The little slot in front of the cartridge that held it in place in the cartridge slot was painted gold by a previous owner, and it had all the gubbins in the box. I can almost taste my excitement all these years later.
Today, some 25 years later, I can play through the game without pausing. Some sections stump me briefly (I always forget to drop down and get the Moon Pearl!), but by and large I remember where I need to be when, and that has only come from "more than a few" playthroughs.
Every element of the game is masterfully crafted to create a cohesive world. The dungeons are well-designed and increasingly taxing, opening up as you locate new items. After finishing the Light World section, recovering the Master Sword in a moment of triumph and using it to defeat the wizard Agahnim, you are transported to the Dark World - a facsimile of your own Hyrule twisted by Gannon's power. It's almost like a whole second game.
I replay this now every few years. It used to be more frequent, annual at least, but well several generations of hardware and dozens of games have joined my library and there's only so much time for revisiting the past. Pun intended.
2. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
I'd experienced some Mario at this point (more on that in a minute) including playing through much of Super Mario World with a friend, but I was not prepared for what would greet me when I powered up this game. It was purchased on a whim. I didn't know it existed I just happened to have saved enough money to buy a new game, and found this in the shop. The box art jumped at me and snatched away my £50.
As the intro sequence began I was instantly hooked. Beautiful crayon art, coloured in a manner that suggested this game was set in a sketchbook. The music was sublime. Then the game started.
Yoshi controls perfectly, and the added egg throwing mechanic unlocks new gameplay ideas compared to early games in the Mario series. In some sections, Yoshi can transform into various vehicles in a race against time to collect coins and make it to the finish block and progress.
The game introduces the idea of 100% completion per level, requiring you to locate 20 red coins hidden amongst regular yellow ones (though I quickly noticed that on my tv the "secret" reds were slightly orange so easy to spot), 5 Daisies and finishing the level with 30 stars. These stars represent Baby Mario's health - if you are injured he falls from your back and floats about in a bubble, the number of stars counting down. When they get to zero Mario is kidnapped and you lose a life. Finish the level with all secrets and you score 100. Finish all eight levels of a world with 100 points and you unlock a special stage.
It's really hard. For all its child-friendly aesthetic this game is super tricky, especially to get 100% throughout. The special stages ramp things up further. Bosses are easily the best in the Mario universe too, particularly the finale against Bowser, who fills your view and attacks you from within the screen.
The inventiveness, fun and sheer joy of Yoshi's Island earns it number two on my list. It would have been number one, except for one more game that holds a very special place in my heart.
1. Super Mario All-Stars
The game that came with my SNES. The options at the time were All-Stars or Street Fighter II (I forget for sure, but I think it was Turbo). I spent weeks umming and ahhing over which choice to make. Street Fighter II was the hot ticket at the time, but then I had become obsessed with the possibility of owning all the NES Marios. I'd experienced plenty of NES previously, through friends, but most importantly I'd "rented" one from my babysitter's brother, who only had Super Mario Bros 2. My time with it was severely limited by my mother thinking it was terribly bad for me, so I used to wake up in the night and sneak some time with it. Needless to say it made an impression on my young mind.
Decision made, I went to school and came home to a beautiful yellow box on the table. My first ever home console!
Due to aforementioned poorness All-Stars had to last a long old time. It would be months before I was able to buy any other games, especially at Nintendo's prices. I became somewhat expert at these four wonderful pieces of gaming history - even making some progress through the insanely difficult Lost Levels.
The improvement to graphics and sound, particularly the music, was incredible. Controls are as tight as the series is famous for, and the ability to choose from two layouts for run and jump was typical Nintendo genius.
It's criminal that in this modern time of remakes and remasters this has not been modernised further, instead releasing as a SNES ROM on a disc for Wii for Mario's 25th Anniversary. What a shame, and perhaps proof enough that Nintendo is not especially concerned about the players - only their wallets. Since GBA, which had ports of games 2 and 3 of this collection, Nintendo have instead realised that there is plenty of money still to be made from selling each game individually with no further cosmetic work.
For sheer quality and quantity of content, not to mention the big variety between the 3 main (western) titles, and being my first even SNES cartridge, this remains my favourite SNES cartridge. I might even go so far as to say my favourite game (collection) ever. There have been better games since - including better Mario games - but this one holds a special place in history (gaming and mine).
I might even go buy a cartridge for my collection, even though I haven't owned a SNES in 20 years.
Honourable Mentions
For a system with so many amazing titles, compiling a list of only ten was very difficult. There are a few honourable mentions that would have been on the list had it been longer -
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Turtles In time
Secret of Mana
Zombies
UN Squadron
Super R-Type
These games especially stand out in my memory as fantastic titles. Turtles In Time is a classic for a reason. Secret of Mana was hugely enjoyable, playing through it in a weekend staying with a friend who knew his way around (the music and art style are some of my favourites of all time). Zombies was fantastic, especially when played two-player. UN Squadron is hard as nails with great music and typical (for the time) Capcom charm. Super R-Type wasn't a critical success, but as a big fan of the series before this I absolutely loved the ability to enjoy a massively updated edition - complete with hi-fi remix of the level one theme.
Any of these games will please anyone looking for a fun SNES cartridge.
A little history. As a child I got to play friends' consoles and computers. NES, Master System, Spectrum, Commodore 64. It was until Super Nintendo that I had one of my own - with Super Mario All Stars included. Now bear in mind that when I got my SNES I was around 13 years old, my family was poor, and my pocket money was £1 a week. I had to save for a year to buy a game, so each purchase had to count. Otherwise I experienced games by borrowing from friends, or later in life when cash flow was less of a problem. This list will incorporate games from both periods of my life, and is based on lasting appeal and not just what I loved then, but don't necessarily enjoy today.
Incidentally this was to be a top 5, but that was ridiculously hard to shortlist.
10. F-Zero
Just imagine what this game meant in 1991. Nothing like it had come before, certainly outside of the arcades. The sense of speed is tangible and the atmosphere created by the sound effects and the awesome music was new and exciting. It is often complained that this is single player only, though rumour has it that attempts to create a multi-player follow up led to fan favourite Super Mario Kart, and you start to understand the importance of F-Zero. It compares well to Wipeout, albeit in a time before "true" 3D where fancy schmancy scaling tricks were required to create what we see here.
Still enjoyable today, it earns its place on this list and would be higher if not for the incredible quality of what follows.
9. Starwing
Or Starfox elsewhere. Starwing introduced us devotees of Nintendo to proper 3D. Wireframe models perhaps, but they work here. The entire package is near perfect, with charm up to the eyeballs and plenty of replay value with various routes through the game. Its sequel, Lylat Wars (StarFox 64) came to N64 with full textures all round, but it (and subsequent games) failed to capture the magic that the first game brought to SNES.
8. Earthworm Jim
Ah Earthworm Jim. Another title that brought with it lovely, new, exciting flavours to our beloved games machines. It sold on the graphics, but we stayed for the inventive gameplay and level design. An unprecedented degree of variety takes us through the slightly random tale of a regular Earthworm (called Jim...) who stumbles upon a suit of armour that takes him on a mission to defeat Queen Slug-For-A-Butt (in remembering this from 20 years ago rather than looking it up, but something like that).
The characters you meet on the journey are tremendous fun, as is controlling Jim himself. Jumping, shooting and whipping (with Jim's body being the whip) are all enjoyable and the boss fights are exciting. The game is difficult and comes from an era with limited lives, limited continues, and no save option. Finishing it then is an exercise in skill and brings a feeling of great accomplishment. Sadly the sequels didn't live up to the pure gameplay of the original.
7. Stunt Race FX
Another showcase for the power of Nintendo's Super FX chip, this racing game was something different to others we loved on the system. Controls are sloppy and the framerate is low, but the overall package is pure joy. The soundtrack is chipper (though I remember I used to listen to The Wonder Stuff's Greatest Hits album a lot with this game) and gets you pumped up for racing. A bonus game has you drive an articulated lorry around a track that it doesn't want to go around in order to earn a bonus. The various cars, each win their own handling and speed characteristics, also have their own personality communicated through their headlight eyes.
A secondary mode has you rushing through obstacle courses. The wobbly controls mean I never got far with these, but they were fun in their way.
6. Super Metroid
Probably the first of my list that is on everyone's list, Super Metroid is special indeed. I've mentioned atmosphere before in this article, and it is an important factor in my enjoyment of games from adventures to FIFA, and this game has it in spades!
Essentially an exercise in navigating a maze, finding power-ups to open new routes through it, and killing some big bosses on the way, it's easy to get lost. The enjoyment of playing the game today is still strong despite generally knowing my way around, and there is a beauty in its design that this is the case. Speed running and trying for a faster time is fun - the whole thing can be done in around 4 hours, but it will take several times that for newcomers.
5. Donkey Kong Country
Another game sold on its graphics, but loved for its content. Everything about this title comes together into one big, warm bundle of magic.
DKC was a massive game when it released. Rare were beloved before but I'd posit that this was the game that truly put them on the map. Once again, everything about it just came together to create a memorable, challenging, enjoyable adventure. The minecart stages are really hard even as well practiced as I am now, and the inertia on the character, particularly after a roll, can lead to trouble, though this is in your hands at all times with responsive controls failing because of your poor reactions.
In the U.K. the game shipped with a CD called "Go Ape!" which included a selection of indie hits of the time. It introduced me to two bands I still hold dear today - Radiohead and Pop Will Eat Itself. It was a great bit of marketing, if slightly random.
The game and its direct sequels were ported to Gameboy and Gameboy Advance, and of course pseudo sequels appeared on Wii, Wii U and 3DS in recent years, but its naturally the SNES original that holds the crown, for me at least.
4. Unirally
Even in my youth I had a taste for the obscure, and when I saw this I knew I had to try it. It didn't disappoint.
Racing as a riderless, sentient unicycle, you race against opponents, performing tricks to increase your speed. The tracks are colour-coded to warn of hazards, and bad or unfortunate timing would result in lost time. Part platformer, part racer, this was a true exercise in level memorisation as you played again and again to improve your records.
The various stage types included A to B sprints, multi-lap races, and point-scoring trick levels with half pipes and ramps.
Rock n Roll was your soundtrack, and it was great, punctuated by the sound of successful (or not) tricks.
This is one game that could use a reboot right about now, with its 2D presentation and clever, tight mechanics. I lost hours and hours to this, and I don't regret them one bit.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Now we get to the one super obvious Super Nintendo title, one that surely exists on anyone's top ten. Often cited as the best Zelda game, and I won't disagree.
This was the second game I ever owned for the SNES, picked up preowned for £25 at SRS, a local camera and computer shop. The little slot in front of the cartridge that held it in place in the cartridge slot was painted gold by a previous owner, and it had all the gubbins in the box. I can almost taste my excitement all these years later.
Today, some 25 years later, I can play through the game without pausing. Some sections stump me briefly (I always forget to drop down and get the Moon Pearl!), but by and large I remember where I need to be when, and that has only come from "more than a few" playthroughs.
Every element of the game is masterfully crafted to create a cohesive world. The dungeons are well-designed and increasingly taxing, opening up as you locate new items. After finishing the Light World section, recovering the Master Sword in a moment of triumph and using it to defeat the wizard Agahnim, you are transported to the Dark World - a facsimile of your own Hyrule twisted by Gannon's power. It's almost like a whole second game.
I replay this now every few years. It used to be more frequent, annual at least, but well several generations of hardware and dozens of games have joined my library and there's only so much time for revisiting the past. Pun intended.
2. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
I'd experienced some Mario at this point (more on that in a minute) including playing through much of Super Mario World with a friend, but I was not prepared for what would greet me when I powered up this game. It was purchased on a whim. I didn't know it existed I just happened to have saved enough money to buy a new game, and found this in the shop. The box art jumped at me and snatched away my £50.
As the intro sequence began I was instantly hooked. Beautiful crayon art, coloured in a manner that suggested this game was set in a sketchbook. The music was sublime. Then the game started.
Yoshi controls perfectly, and the added egg throwing mechanic unlocks new gameplay ideas compared to early games in the Mario series. In some sections, Yoshi can transform into various vehicles in a race against time to collect coins and make it to the finish block and progress.
The game introduces the idea of 100% completion per level, requiring you to locate 20 red coins hidden amongst regular yellow ones (though I quickly noticed that on my tv the "secret" reds were slightly orange so easy to spot), 5 Daisies and finishing the level with 30 stars. These stars represent Baby Mario's health - if you are injured he falls from your back and floats about in a bubble, the number of stars counting down. When they get to zero Mario is kidnapped and you lose a life. Finish the level with all secrets and you score 100. Finish all eight levels of a world with 100 points and you unlock a special stage.
It's really hard. For all its child-friendly aesthetic this game is super tricky, especially to get 100% throughout. The special stages ramp things up further. Bosses are easily the best in the Mario universe too, particularly the finale against Bowser, who fills your view and attacks you from within the screen.
The inventiveness, fun and sheer joy of Yoshi's Island earns it number two on my list. It would have been number one, except for one more game that holds a very special place in my heart.
1. Super Mario All-Stars
The game that came with my SNES. The options at the time were All-Stars or Street Fighter II (I forget for sure, but I think it was Turbo). I spent weeks umming and ahhing over which choice to make. Street Fighter II was the hot ticket at the time, but then I had become obsessed with the possibility of owning all the NES Marios. I'd experienced plenty of NES previously, through friends, but most importantly I'd "rented" one from my babysitter's brother, who only had Super Mario Bros 2. My time with it was severely limited by my mother thinking it was terribly bad for me, so I used to wake up in the night and sneak some time with it. Needless to say it made an impression on my young mind.
Decision made, I went to school and came home to a beautiful yellow box on the table. My first ever home console!
Due to aforementioned poorness All-Stars had to last a long old time. It would be months before I was able to buy any other games, especially at Nintendo's prices. I became somewhat expert at these four wonderful pieces of gaming history - even making some progress through the insanely difficult Lost Levels.
The improvement to graphics and sound, particularly the music, was incredible. Controls are as tight as the series is famous for, and the ability to choose from two layouts for run and jump was typical Nintendo genius.
It's criminal that in this modern time of remakes and remasters this has not been modernised further, instead releasing as a SNES ROM on a disc for Wii for Mario's 25th Anniversary. What a shame, and perhaps proof enough that Nintendo is not especially concerned about the players - only their wallets. Since GBA, which had ports of games 2 and 3 of this collection, Nintendo have instead realised that there is plenty of money still to be made from selling each game individually with no further cosmetic work.
For sheer quality and quantity of content, not to mention the big variety between the 3 main (western) titles, and being my first even SNES cartridge, this remains my favourite SNES cartridge. I might even go so far as to say my favourite game (collection) ever. There have been better games since - including better Mario games - but this one holds a special place in history (gaming and mine).
I might even go buy a cartridge for my collection, even though I haven't owned a SNES in 20 years.
Honourable Mentions
For a system with so many amazing titles, compiling a list of only ten was very difficult. There are a few honourable mentions that would have been on the list had it been longer -
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Turtles In time
Secret of Mana
Zombies
UN Squadron
Super R-Type
These games especially stand out in my memory as fantastic titles. Turtles In Time is a classic for a reason. Secret of Mana was hugely enjoyable, playing through it in a weekend staying with a friend who knew his way around (the music and art style are some of my favourites of all time). Zombies was fantastic, especially when played two-player. UN Squadron is hard as nails with great music and typical (for the time) Capcom charm. Super R-Type wasn't a critical success, but as a big fan of the series before this I absolutely loved the ability to enjoy a massively updated edition - complete with hi-fi remix of the level one theme.
Any of these games will please anyone looking for a fun SNES cartridge.
Five Games Everyone Loves And I Don't Get It
There are games that generate unreal levels of hype. It seems that the world is alight with a fever with some releases, such that one dare not announce their lack of interest.
Well, that's not accurate. I've never been afraid to say when I find a game boring, or that I don't enjoy something, despite everyone and their mother professing to absolutely love it.
Here's a list of five massively hyped games I just didn't like as much as I was told I should. And perhaps you don't either, you're just too afraid to speak up.
1. Halo
I remember Halo's release well. It was heralded as the next big thing in First Person Shooters on home consoles. Sure yo to that point FPS games were fairly weak - play any PlayStation or PlayStation 2 games in the genre and you'll find clunky controls, a crosshair that jumps across the screen with the slightest pressure on the right stick, and often back then the draw distance and resolution made it hard to spot your enemies until you got closer.
Halo promised to bring console gaming home, so to speak. But boy was it boring! Poster child of Xbox fanboys, which probably didn't Sidney enjoyment, it presented room after room of the same enemies with their annoying commentary as your dull, lifeless Master Chief laid them to waste.
It sure did look nice, I'll give it that, and unfortunately other games of its time didn't borrow from its ideas of colourful palettes and lush vistas. But that's not enough. The game is boring, the story is boring. And I'm in a clear minority.
I recently picked up the Anniversary remake for Xbox 360. I enjoyed that even less. Games have moved on so much in the last 15 years that this vision of the future is nothing but dated by today's standards.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Ok ok. This will piss some people off. The truth is I too was massively excited about this game. The open world structure concerned me, as it was the one thing I didn't enjoy about A Link Between Worlds before it, but otherwise I've enjoyed most Zelda games that came before (a notable exception being Majora's Mask, which could have made this list if I wanted two games of the same series on it).
I popped to my local retailer on 3rd March 2017 to collect my preorder, headed back home, announced my unavailability for the rest of the day, and set about getting into this new, open, version of hyrule.
From the off the story was bold and quite a lot of fun, with some clever twists on the usual series conventions. The world in which is was set is simply beautiful, and it was a joy to explore the starting area. Unfortunately that feeling didn't last too long for me, and I soon started to find that same exploration a chore.
A lot of the problem for me is the lack of guidance. I don't want to be handheld the whole way through a game like this, but there is very little instruction about how to progress that sometimes it is blind luck (especially on a map of this size) that you stumble upon the item you need. That or you've Googled it.
The world is vast, yet empty. The bulk of the "levels" are small temples which contain puzzles that require a level of mastery of the game mechanics and the world's physics. They can be fun, but very few offer a true challenge. The "dungeons" come in the form of four ancient machine beasts that you must navigate before defeating an insanely difficult boss to bring said beast to your side in the battle against evil. Four dungeons in the whole game. Small, quite simple dungeons. Four of them.
The people you meet on your journey are for the most part interesting, a plus point in all this negativity. However I soon (well, 20 hours or so in) grew bored of seeking them out.
Then there are the towers. In a nod to Assassin's Creed you climb towers in order to unlock areas of the map. The towers are about as interesting and taxing to climb as they are in AC. In fact, with a couple of exceptions, the only obstacle to reaching the top is your minimal stamina gauge which will run out if you don't make it to a ledge to rest, causing you to fall and start again. Or die.
Dying happens a lot too. A bit like Dark Souls (there's an over-used comparison for hard games) you will die if you take on a Boss if you're not ready, or if you go to an area for which you are not equipped. Once I tripped on a pebble as I ran along a path, and died.
So. I'm not a fan. Everybody tells me this is the best Zelda game / best Nintendo game / best game evah but I just can't agree on any of those points. I'll get back to it some day and maybe bill change my mind. Not today though.
3. Final Fantasy III / VI / VIII / XV....
Ok so I've picked out the games that most commonly appear on lists of The Best Games Evah. 3 and 6 being the same game, depending on which lump of land it came to.
Final Fantasy VII was a special game for me, being an early PlayStation title and one which showed what was capable on the new generation hardware. The atmosphere was amazing, and I still get a pang of nostalgia in my tummy whenever I hear the music, especially in the opening areas. I even have the battle music as my ringtone.
What gets me is the nonsense that punctuated conversation about the series. At one point 7 is clearly the best game of the series, then along comes news of a reboot, and suddenly out come the hipsters with their "oh 7's not all that, 6 is where it's at," or "meh I enjoyed 7, but 9 was the best!"
XV recently launched to massive hype. Anybody who's anybody described it as the greatest game ever in Final Fantasy. It makes sense that it would be - each game that comes should be better than those before it, or what's the point. Except Final Fantasy doesn't subscribe to those rules with each game more convoluted and ridiculous than the previous. XV doesn't break this tradition, and offers a dull combat system, boring skill levelling, and forgettable story.
I can't even be bothered to talk about it further.
4. Earthbound
For a long time I hadn't played this game. In fact I hadn't even heard of it until recent years when it started to get mentioned on the interwebs. Supposedly one of the greatest games of the SNES library, and apparently artificially highly priced despite there being plenty of supply, I finally got to see what it was all about when Nintendo brought SNES games to 3DS and I was dumb enough to buy a few of them.
There is a feeling of joy in the game. The opening scenes feel good. There's a silliness to things that I do enjoy.
However the gameplay is so tiresome that I struggle to get far at all every time I try to get into it. The inventory system is out of date, the battle system archaic. Perhaps if I can find the patience to scratch its surface I'll feel different, but it seems at the moment another example of the cool kids latching onto a game because it's different and less well-known than the obvious genre titles.
5. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy
Ahhhhhhh. Just to be topical. Not that that matters, it might be 100 years before anyone reads this, if at all.
The internet has been crazy about this remaster for months, the hype increasing in intensity as we drew closer to release - which happened last Friday.
To aid my decision not to pre-order I went back to the PlayStation originals to see if my expectations of joy were based on genuine memory, or rose-tinted nostalgia. It turned out to be somewhere in between.
The games played just as I remembered them, and I even had a little fun. However, the overall impression was, as with so many retro games, time has not been kind. The games are as good as they ever were - the problem is that gaming technology, and perhaps more
Importantly the conventions and language that dictate how we expect to play them, have changed a lot in the two decades and three hardware generations since, which - beside notable exceptions, including Super Mario Bros with its simplistic styling and perfectly formed platforming - renders the games "old".
As I understand it the remastering of the trilogy extends only to the graphics and sound, which leads me to assume the clunky, aged gameplay is intact. Which in my experience with other titles suggests a massive dissonance between what you see and what you feel.
I'll wait for further feedback before I decide whether to dive in and give this a go (probably when it's half it's current price) but for now colour me uninterested. I'd much rather play the originals and have the gameplay match what my eyes and ears are taking in. Besides, instead of selling out an old game and demanding remasters of more old games, shouldn't we be petitioning for better new games that truly advance the art of video games?
---
So. If you even read this far after I dared suggest Breath of the Wild wasn't all that, I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my thinking on the matter of hyped games. It's not the hype itself that is the problem - I absolutely loved Horizon Zero Dawn! - but the blind hype that follows certain titles that isn't necessarily deserved.
Well, that's not accurate. I've never been afraid to say when I find a game boring, or that I don't enjoy something, despite everyone and their mother professing to absolutely love it.
Here's a list of five massively hyped games I just didn't like as much as I was told I should. And perhaps you don't either, you're just too afraid to speak up.
1. Halo
I remember Halo's release well. It was heralded as the next big thing in First Person Shooters on home consoles. Sure yo to that point FPS games were fairly weak - play any PlayStation or PlayStation 2 games in the genre and you'll find clunky controls, a crosshair that jumps across the screen with the slightest pressure on the right stick, and often back then the draw distance and resolution made it hard to spot your enemies until you got closer.
Halo promised to bring console gaming home, so to speak. But boy was it boring! Poster child of Xbox fanboys, which probably didn't Sidney enjoyment, it presented room after room of the same enemies with their annoying commentary as your dull, lifeless Master Chief laid them to waste.
It sure did look nice, I'll give it that, and unfortunately other games of its time didn't borrow from its ideas of colourful palettes and lush vistas. But that's not enough. The game is boring, the story is boring. And I'm in a clear minority.
I recently picked up the Anniversary remake for Xbox 360. I enjoyed that even less. Games have moved on so much in the last 15 years that this vision of the future is nothing but dated by today's standards.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Ok ok. This will piss some people off. The truth is I too was massively excited about this game. The open world structure concerned me, as it was the one thing I didn't enjoy about A Link Between Worlds before it, but otherwise I've enjoyed most Zelda games that came before (a notable exception being Majora's Mask, which could have made this list if I wanted two games of the same series on it).
I popped to my local retailer on 3rd March 2017 to collect my preorder, headed back home, announced my unavailability for the rest of the day, and set about getting into this new, open, version of hyrule.
From the off the story was bold and quite a lot of fun, with some clever twists on the usual series conventions. The world in which is was set is simply beautiful, and it was a joy to explore the starting area. Unfortunately that feeling didn't last too long for me, and I soon started to find that same exploration a chore.
A lot of the problem for me is the lack of guidance. I don't want to be handheld the whole way through a game like this, but there is very little instruction about how to progress that sometimes it is blind luck (especially on a map of this size) that you stumble upon the item you need. That or you've Googled it.
The world is vast, yet empty. The bulk of the "levels" are small temples which contain puzzles that require a level of mastery of the game mechanics and the world's physics. They can be fun, but very few offer a true challenge. The "dungeons" come in the form of four ancient machine beasts that you must navigate before defeating an insanely difficult boss to bring said beast to your side in the battle against evil. Four dungeons in the whole game. Small, quite simple dungeons. Four of them.
The people you meet on your journey are for the most part interesting, a plus point in all this negativity. However I soon (well, 20 hours or so in) grew bored of seeking them out.
Then there are the towers. In a nod to Assassin's Creed you climb towers in order to unlock areas of the map. The towers are about as interesting and taxing to climb as they are in AC. In fact, with a couple of exceptions, the only obstacle to reaching the top is your minimal stamina gauge which will run out if you don't make it to a ledge to rest, causing you to fall and start again. Or die.
Dying happens a lot too. A bit like Dark Souls (there's an over-used comparison for hard games) you will die if you take on a Boss if you're not ready, or if you go to an area for which you are not equipped. Once I tripped on a pebble as I ran along a path, and died.
So. I'm not a fan. Everybody tells me this is the best Zelda game / best Nintendo game / best game evah but I just can't agree on any of those points. I'll get back to it some day and maybe bill change my mind. Not today though.
3. Final Fantasy III / VI / VIII / XV....
Ok so I've picked out the games that most commonly appear on lists of The Best Games Evah. 3 and 6 being the same game, depending on which lump of land it came to.
Final Fantasy VII was a special game for me, being an early PlayStation title and one which showed what was capable on the new generation hardware. The atmosphere was amazing, and I still get a pang of nostalgia in my tummy whenever I hear the music, especially in the opening areas. I even have the battle music as my ringtone.
What gets me is the nonsense that punctuated conversation about the series. At one point 7 is clearly the best game of the series, then along comes news of a reboot, and suddenly out come the hipsters with their "oh 7's not all that, 6 is where it's at," or "meh I enjoyed 7, but 9 was the best!"
XV recently launched to massive hype. Anybody who's anybody described it as the greatest game ever in Final Fantasy. It makes sense that it would be - each game that comes should be better than those before it, or what's the point. Except Final Fantasy doesn't subscribe to those rules with each game more convoluted and ridiculous than the previous. XV doesn't break this tradition, and offers a dull combat system, boring skill levelling, and forgettable story.
I can't even be bothered to talk about it further.
4. Earthbound
For a long time I hadn't played this game. In fact I hadn't even heard of it until recent years when it started to get mentioned on the interwebs. Supposedly one of the greatest games of the SNES library, and apparently artificially highly priced despite there being plenty of supply, I finally got to see what it was all about when Nintendo brought SNES games to 3DS and I was dumb enough to buy a few of them.
There is a feeling of joy in the game. The opening scenes feel good. There's a silliness to things that I do enjoy.
However the gameplay is so tiresome that I struggle to get far at all every time I try to get into it. The inventory system is out of date, the battle system archaic. Perhaps if I can find the patience to scratch its surface I'll feel different, but it seems at the moment another example of the cool kids latching onto a game because it's different and less well-known than the obvious genre titles.
5. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy
Ahhhhhhh. Just to be topical. Not that that matters, it might be 100 years before anyone reads this, if at all.
The internet has been crazy about this remaster for months, the hype increasing in intensity as we drew closer to release - which happened last Friday.
To aid my decision not to pre-order I went back to the PlayStation originals to see if my expectations of joy were based on genuine memory, or rose-tinted nostalgia. It turned out to be somewhere in between.
The games played just as I remembered them, and I even had a little fun. However, the overall impression was, as with so many retro games, time has not been kind. The games are as good as they ever were - the problem is that gaming technology, and perhaps more
Importantly the conventions and language that dictate how we expect to play them, have changed a lot in the two decades and three hardware generations since, which - beside notable exceptions, including Super Mario Bros with its simplistic styling and perfectly formed platforming - renders the games "old".
As I understand it the remastering of the trilogy extends only to the graphics and sound, which leads me to assume the clunky, aged gameplay is intact. Which in my experience with other titles suggests a massive dissonance between what you see and what you feel.
I'll wait for further feedback before I decide whether to dive in and give this a go (probably when it's half it's current price) but for now colour me uninterested. I'd much rather play the originals and have the gameplay match what my eyes and ears are taking in. Besides, instead of selling out an old game and demanding remasters of more old games, shouldn't we be petitioning for better new games that truly advance the art of video games?
---
So. If you even read this far after I dared suggest Breath of the Wild wasn't all that, I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my thinking on the matter of hyped games. It's not the hype itself that is the problem - I absolutely loved Horizon Zero Dawn! - but the blind hype that follows certain titles that isn't necessarily deserved.
Wednesday, 28 June 2017
RETROspective: Gameboy Advance
Ah Gameboy Advance. Out of all the retro goodness out there, GBA is an easy favourite. Today I will try and articulate my feelings and explain what it is about that wonderful machine that lights up all my nostaligia buttons.
I suppose the first obvious factor in its success for me is one of timing. Gameboy Advance first reared its head in 2001. I was 20, had been out of school for two years earning (not much) money. For the first time in my life I was able to spend some on things I wanted. Previously I'd had to wait for a Gameboy until my mum could afford one (no easy task at the time) and I'd also eventually had a SNES. Having the hardware was very nice but, unlike a lot of my friends, I couldn't afford the games. I only every owned Super Mario All Stars, Legend of Zelda, Yoshi's Island and Earthworm Jim on SNES and Super Mario Land 2 and Tetris on Gameboy. Otherwise I had to rely on the generosity of friends to lend me games when I couldn't offer anything in return. Needless to say I played a lot more games around friends houses than at home. Later on I had an Amiga 500+ for which piracy was rampant to say the least, and so I could finally enjoy video games at home. This is likely the most important factor in my spawning as a gamer.
With Gameboy Advance, and it's partner GameCube, I had much less financial restriction. I warned my own money, lived at home paying little rent and being fed. Whilst my pay was minimal, taking home around £600 a month, £480 of that was mine to do as I wished. I don't have that much disposable income today.
Besides that, Gameboy Advance introduced me to the idea of backwards compatibility. I could play all these shiny new SNES-quality games, but still enjoy my Gameboy games. I even had a couple of "DX" editions I could not finally enjoy in full colour for the first time.
At the time it didn't matter that it wasn't backlit. Sure, we'd seen it done years before with Game Gear and Lynx, however I for one was happy to trade the backlight for several times the battery life - on two batteries too! My evenings were spent drinking Bells and Coke with my friends, so my main gaming time was during the day or early evening, when there was usually ample sunlight to sit by the window and enjoy. The GBA screen is very nice indeed in the right conditions. I never felt he need to purchase a wormlight or similar.
Yesterday, as I documented, I installed a backlit screen to my GBA. I'd installed a front light to the original screen and it was disappointing to say the least. I cracked the screen removing the frontlight panel, leaving my GBA without a display. Recently backlit GBA screens have come back to the market. They're not cheap - I ordered mine from the uk for £55 including an adapter cable to fit it to the original GBA. Given the price of the AGS-101 backlit SP models today though, at least locally, it was a good price. The result is brilliant too, the screen is of a really high quality, and the fact that I can use my rechargeable AA batteries is far preferable to me than an installed rechargeable battery, which itself has a limited life of maybe ten years.
I own an SP (frontlit standard version) and I remember at the time of release we were all impressed that we could now play our games anywhere. Today it is a weak compromise on the issue, and the console itself I find hard to use due to cramped buttons. The buttons are also clicky and weird and overall the unit feels cheap. I may, for the sake of it, install a frontlit screen to it in the future, for the sake of improving it really. Then I will be able to use the SP when travelling and keep my non-clamshell GBA safe at home.
The Games
Of course no system can be called great without great games. GBA had plenty. Two decent, if short, Metroid titles, Mario Golf, various Final Fantasy releases (I particularly enjoyed Tactics), Mario Kart... but there were also signs of Nintendo's greed starting to shine through in the GBA library. In particular I want to mention Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the four Super Mario Advance games.
Yes, all of these titles were great titles in their own right. Yes, we were going to buy them. However, in retrospect it was the start of something that has become prominent in Nintendo's business model. Re-releasing old games at a high price, whilst adding little of value to them. I'll go through these games one by one.
Zelda. A great game. Simply one of the best. Certainly in SNES's top five. This is probably the least cynical re-release. Hours of gameplay in the main game already, but they also bundled it with Four Swords Adventure. I never really got into that, I found it a bit boring. I've always preferred my gaming straight forward and single player for the most part. I feel anything it served to outshine GBA's original Zelda title The Minish Cap, which is weaksauce in comparison. Which is a shame. Instead of milking a decade old game, They could have concentrated on creating better original content.
Super Mario Advance. Or Super Mario Bros 2. This was an odd choice for the first game in this series, being the most derided of the Super Mario Bros NES games. Well, people deride it now as "not a real Mario game" but they're just trying to be clever. No one knew that it was a reskinned Doki Doki Panic back then, and I would wager that many people enjoyed it as much as I did. It still has my favourite of all the NES sound tracks too. Still, this was a NES game being sold at full retail price fifteen years later. Sure it was based on the SNES All Stars remaster of the game, which came out in Europe eight years previous, but that just begs the question - why didn't they release All Stars on GBA and be done with it? I'll tell you why - ¥¥¥.
Super Mario World. The second release was the fantastic Super Mario World. Ok, I can't fault this one. It was a perfect fit for the console and proved what we knew already: GBA was a handheld SNES.
Yoshi's Island. Ok this one can slip by too. My favourite game of all time, easily the best Yoshi game (I don't know why they can't match its quality with its sequels to this day) and so much content. It was by no means an easy game, and that's before you start trying to collect 100% of all items and unlock the insanely difficult bonus levels. Yoshi games of late (Woolly World for example) have become very child-friendly, with simple levels, taking more from the Kirby mould. This first one though was hard as nails and I bet hardly anyone has ever completed it, let alone 100%.
Super Mario Bros 3. Stick this one with Super Mario Advance. This fourth instalment should have been part of an All Stars re-release. Not charging full price again. Everything I said about that first one applies here.
All four Super Mario Advance games came with Mario Bros. The old arcade game that has you bashing enemies from below and kicking their heads in. It's not a game I enjoy, and whilst it adds some value to each package it would have been nice to see a different bundled game with each release to add some true value. It would also have been nice to have seen an actual original Mario release for GBA, it's the one thing it lacked.
So despite these complaints about these specific titles, GBA's line up was quite incredible. Add in a massive library of great Gameboy games - Tetris DX, R-Type DX, Links Awakening DX, Super Mario Land and its sequel, Mystic Quest, Donkey Kong 94, all the Wario Land games.... the list goes on.
The Hardware
Nintendo also struck gold with the hardware design, at least on the original version. As we've mentioned it would have benefited somewhat from a backlit screen, however the resulting 10+ hours of battery life was a worthwhile compromise. Technology has moved on somewhat in the past 16 years, so now a backlit screen consumes far less energy and is available as an after market upgrade for those who really want it.
Which brings me to the main reason to employ such an upgrade to the original GBA version. It's form factor is as close to perfect as I've ever enjoyed. With the screen in the centre, it follows the basic design of Sega's Game Gear with D-Pad and Face Buttons either side of the screen. Two shoulder buttons are brought over from the SNES controller, and are what truly made this feel like Gameboy ADVANCE. It is comfortable to hold, light, and the cartridge slot is in the top where you'd expect it. As Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges are taller than GBA's they poke out by about half their height, so it is good that they are not in the way in use.
The SP model followed, adding in a frontlight. Today it looks washed out and weak, however back then it was quite a big deal. The light is spread relatively smooth across the screen and it certainly works better than any number of external light sources that were available for the GBA. A later revision had a new, backlit screen. This is highly sought after today, and didn't sell too many units back then thanks to DS, so expect to pay far too much. There are fewer and fewer of them out there too, as people tear them apart to repurpose the screen in an original GBA.
The clamshell design was also heralded as a marvel, because apparently most people are incapable of taking care of their belongings (people have made complaints about the 2DS's lack of clamshell too, because they would scratch their screens in their carelessness).
Overall the SP model is my least favourite. The D-Pad and face buttons are too close together, leaving my hands contorted in use. The screen, whilst frontlit, seems to be of a lesser quality than on the original and with the frontlight off the screen is nearly invisible in all but the brightest sunlight. It also marked Nintendo's first move away from trusty AA batteries to an in-built rechargeable. These is some sense to this, in terms of ecological concern and decreasing the size of the console, however it brings with it new frustrations for a retro gamer who wishes to enjoy his games today, so many years later. The first is that the batteries are by now largely at the end of their useful life and need replacing. Nintendo aren't going to be producing these any more, so we're left with cheap eBay knock-offs instead. These invariably don't last as long between charges. And that's the other problem - charging the battery is a requirement, meaning that at times you are either tethered to the wall or unable to play while you wait for the battery to refuel. Using Rechargeable AA batteries I can swap them out when they run low, and charge one set whilst using another. And if I'm out and about, perhaps on holiday, AA batteries are easy to come by in any store.
Later still came the Gameboy Micro. DS was already available at this point and so the Micro didn't sell so well as it's forebears. I got one, of course, and it is a fantastic thing. Very tiny, and hard to use for extended play, I've still been able to enjoy a couple of hours here and there. It was my first ever backlit thing, and it's screen is quite beautiful. Certainly better than the front lit, dim display of the first DS. Better even than the backlit DS Lite, which suffers from motion blur. Just tiny. The battery lasted well, and it was clearly sold as a premium product. The one thing it lacked - Gameboy backwards compatibility. I suppose by this time Gameboy was old news. Nintendo continues now to support previous hardware for a maximum of one generation (GameCube to Wii to Wii U at least) so this pattern in some way started here.
Overall, GBA has enough different models to appeal to anyone. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately they all grant access to a vast library of fantastic games.
I shouldn't forget one last edition of the Gameboy Advance - The Gameboy Player. This wonderful thing clips under the GameCube, enabling you to play GBA games on your television, much like the Super Gameboy before it. Also supporting Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges, it expanded the GameCube library to insane numbers. You can use a GameCube controller with its tiny, kind of rubbish D-Pad, or (such is Nintendo's genius) a GBA connected with a link cable as a controller. Hori even made a Gameboy Player controller with a button layout more suitable for those games. The Gameboy Player is easy, and incredibly cheap, to come by - but the software disc not so much. Somehow the hardware and software in many cases has become separated over the years, and no disc means the GB Player will not function. For comparison, when I found mine recently, I could get the Player for €18, and with a disc it became €55. I've seen discs alone go for upwards of €50. So if you have one, keep it safe.
What else is there to say about the mighty GBA? Now is a good time to get one. The prices are right, it sold millions so there are plenty of consoles still out there. Interest in it is high however, as demonstrated by the fact that you can buy aftermarket displays for it now, so expect availability to slowly decrease and prices to go up.
Boxed games will set you back a small premium - it was the last generation in which Nintendo used cardboard boxes so finding one in good quality is incredibly difficult. Being cartridge based however, there is no harm in purchasing your games unboxed. And don't forget about the Everdrive and its peers, which unlock a world of homebrew.
Look out for fake games too. They are common. Learn how to spot fakes. I once had a fake Mario Golf and I found out if was fake after it blew a fuse in my DS Lite.
That's it I think. Great console. Great games. Should be the highlight of any retro fan's collection.
I suppose the first obvious factor in its success for me is one of timing. Gameboy Advance first reared its head in 2001. I was 20, had been out of school for two years earning (not much) money. For the first time in my life I was able to spend some on things I wanted. Previously I'd had to wait for a Gameboy until my mum could afford one (no easy task at the time) and I'd also eventually had a SNES. Having the hardware was very nice but, unlike a lot of my friends, I couldn't afford the games. I only every owned Super Mario All Stars, Legend of Zelda, Yoshi's Island and Earthworm Jim on SNES and Super Mario Land 2 and Tetris on Gameboy. Otherwise I had to rely on the generosity of friends to lend me games when I couldn't offer anything in return. Needless to say I played a lot more games around friends houses than at home. Later on I had an Amiga 500+ for which piracy was rampant to say the least, and so I could finally enjoy video games at home. This is likely the most important factor in my spawning as a gamer.
With Gameboy Advance, and it's partner GameCube, I had much less financial restriction. I warned my own money, lived at home paying little rent and being fed. Whilst my pay was minimal, taking home around £600 a month, £480 of that was mine to do as I wished. I don't have that much disposable income today.
Besides that, Gameboy Advance introduced me to the idea of backwards compatibility. I could play all these shiny new SNES-quality games, but still enjoy my Gameboy games. I even had a couple of "DX" editions I could not finally enjoy in full colour for the first time.
At the time it didn't matter that it wasn't backlit. Sure, we'd seen it done years before with Game Gear and Lynx, however I for one was happy to trade the backlight for several times the battery life - on two batteries too! My evenings were spent drinking Bells and Coke with my friends, so my main gaming time was during the day or early evening, when there was usually ample sunlight to sit by the window and enjoy. The GBA screen is very nice indeed in the right conditions. I never felt he need to purchase a wormlight or similar.
Yesterday, as I documented, I installed a backlit screen to my GBA. I'd installed a front light to the original screen and it was disappointing to say the least. I cracked the screen removing the frontlight panel, leaving my GBA without a display. Recently backlit GBA screens have come back to the market. They're not cheap - I ordered mine from the uk for £55 including an adapter cable to fit it to the original GBA. Given the price of the AGS-101 backlit SP models today though, at least locally, it was a good price. The result is brilliant too, the screen is of a really high quality, and the fact that I can use my rechargeable AA batteries is far preferable to me than an installed rechargeable battery, which itself has a limited life of maybe ten years.
I own an SP (frontlit standard version) and I remember at the time of release we were all impressed that we could now play our games anywhere. Today it is a weak compromise on the issue, and the console itself I find hard to use due to cramped buttons. The buttons are also clicky and weird and overall the unit feels cheap. I may, for the sake of it, install a frontlit screen to it in the future, for the sake of improving it really. Then I will be able to use the SP when travelling and keep my non-clamshell GBA safe at home.
The Games
Of course no system can be called great without great games. GBA had plenty. Two decent, if short, Metroid titles, Mario Golf, various Final Fantasy releases (I particularly enjoyed Tactics), Mario Kart... but there were also signs of Nintendo's greed starting to shine through in the GBA library. In particular I want to mention Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the four Super Mario Advance games.
Yes, all of these titles were great titles in their own right. Yes, we were going to buy them. However, in retrospect it was the start of something that has become prominent in Nintendo's business model. Re-releasing old games at a high price, whilst adding little of value to them. I'll go through these games one by one.
Zelda. A great game. Simply one of the best. Certainly in SNES's top five. This is probably the least cynical re-release. Hours of gameplay in the main game already, but they also bundled it with Four Swords Adventure. I never really got into that, I found it a bit boring. I've always preferred my gaming straight forward and single player for the most part. I feel anything it served to outshine GBA's original Zelda title The Minish Cap, which is weaksauce in comparison. Which is a shame. Instead of milking a decade old game, They could have concentrated on creating better original content.
Super Mario Advance. Or Super Mario Bros 2. This was an odd choice for the first game in this series, being the most derided of the Super Mario Bros NES games. Well, people deride it now as "not a real Mario game" but they're just trying to be clever. No one knew that it was a reskinned Doki Doki Panic back then, and I would wager that many people enjoyed it as much as I did. It still has my favourite of all the NES sound tracks too. Still, this was a NES game being sold at full retail price fifteen years later. Sure it was based on the SNES All Stars remaster of the game, which came out in Europe eight years previous, but that just begs the question - why didn't they release All Stars on GBA and be done with it? I'll tell you why - ¥¥¥.
Super Mario World. The second release was the fantastic Super Mario World. Ok, I can't fault this one. It was a perfect fit for the console and proved what we knew already: GBA was a handheld SNES.
Yoshi's Island. Ok this one can slip by too. My favourite game of all time, easily the best Yoshi game (I don't know why they can't match its quality with its sequels to this day) and so much content. It was by no means an easy game, and that's before you start trying to collect 100% of all items and unlock the insanely difficult bonus levels. Yoshi games of late (Woolly World for example) have become very child-friendly, with simple levels, taking more from the Kirby mould. This first one though was hard as nails and I bet hardly anyone has ever completed it, let alone 100%.
Super Mario Bros 3. Stick this one with Super Mario Advance. This fourth instalment should have been part of an All Stars re-release. Not charging full price again. Everything I said about that first one applies here.
All four Super Mario Advance games came with Mario Bros. The old arcade game that has you bashing enemies from below and kicking their heads in. It's not a game I enjoy, and whilst it adds some value to each package it would have been nice to see a different bundled game with each release to add some true value. It would also have been nice to have seen an actual original Mario release for GBA, it's the one thing it lacked.
So despite these complaints about these specific titles, GBA's line up was quite incredible. Add in a massive library of great Gameboy games - Tetris DX, R-Type DX, Links Awakening DX, Super Mario Land and its sequel, Mystic Quest, Donkey Kong 94, all the Wario Land games.... the list goes on.
The Hardware
Nintendo also struck gold with the hardware design, at least on the original version. As we've mentioned it would have benefited somewhat from a backlit screen, however the resulting 10+ hours of battery life was a worthwhile compromise. Technology has moved on somewhat in the past 16 years, so now a backlit screen consumes far less energy and is available as an after market upgrade for those who really want it.
Which brings me to the main reason to employ such an upgrade to the original GBA version. It's form factor is as close to perfect as I've ever enjoyed. With the screen in the centre, it follows the basic design of Sega's Game Gear with D-Pad and Face Buttons either side of the screen. Two shoulder buttons are brought over from the SNES controller, and are what truly made this feel like Gameboy ADVANCE. It is comfortable to hold, light, and the cartridge slot is in the top where you'd expect it. As Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges are taller than GBA's they poke out by about half their height, so it is good that they are not in the way in use.
The SP model followed, adding in a frontlight. Today it looks washed out and weak, however back then it was quite a big deal. The light is spread relatively smooth across the screen and it certainly works better than any number of external light sources that were available for the GBA. A later revision had a new, backlit screen. This is highly sought after today, and didn't sell too many units back then thanks to DS, so expect to pay far too much. There are fewer and fewer of them out there too, as people tear them apart to repurpose the screen in an original GBA.
The clamshell design was also heralded as a marvel, because apparently most people are incapable of taking care of their belongings (people have made complaints about the 2DS's lack of clamshell too, because they would scratch their screens in their carelessness).
Overall the SP model is my least favourite. The D-Pad and face buttons are too close together, leaving my hands contorted in use. The screen, whilst frontlit, seems to be of a lesser quality than on the original and with the frontlight off the screen is nearly invisible in all but the brightest sunlight. It also marked Nintendo's first move away from trusty AA batteries to an in-built rechargeable. These is some sense to this, in terms of ecological concern and decreasing the size of the console, however it brings with it new frustrations for a retro gamer who wishes to enjoy his games today, so many years later. The first is that the batteries are by now largely at the end of their useful life and need replacing. Nintendo aren't going to be producing these any more, so we're left with cheap eBay knock-offs instead. These invariably don't last as long between charges. And that's the other problem - charging the battery is a requirement, meaning that at times you are either tethered to the wall or unable to play while you wait for the battery to refuel. Using Rechargeable AA batteries I can swap them out when they run low, and charge one set whilst using another. And if I'm out and about, perhaps on holiday, AA batteries are easy to come by in any store.
Later still came the Gameboy Micro. DS was already available at this point and so the Micro didn't sell so well as it's forebears. I got one, of course, and it is a fantastic thing. Very tiny, and hard to use for extended play, I've still been able to enjoy a couple of hours here and there. It was my first ever backlit thing, and it's screen is quite beautiful. Certainly better than the front lit, dim display of the first DS. Better even than the backlit DS Lite, which suffers from motion blur. Just tiny. The battery lasted well, and it was clearly sold as a premium product. The one thing it lacked - Gameboy backwards compatibility. I suppose by this time Gameboy was old news. Nintendo continues now to support previous hardware for a maximum of one generation (GameCube to Wii to Wii U at least) so this pattern in some way started here.
Overall, GBA has enough different models to appeal to anyone. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately they all grant access to a vast library of fantastic games.
I shouldn't forget one last edition of the Gameboy Advance - The Gameboy Player. This wonderful thing clips under the GameCube, enabling you to play GBA games on your television, much like the Super Gameboy before it. Also supporting Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges, it expanded the GameCube library to insane numbers. You can use a GameCube controller with its tiny, kind of rubbish D-Pad, or (such is Nintendo's genius) a GBA connected with a link cable as a controller. Hori even made a Gameboy Player controller with a button layout more suitable for those games. The Gameboy Player is easy, and incredibly cheap, to come by - but the software disc not so much. Somehow the hardware and software in many cases has become separated over the years, and no disc means the GB Player will not function. For comparison, when I found mine recently, I could get the Player for €18, and with a disc it became €55. I've seen discs alone go for upwards of €50. So if you have one, keep it safe.
What else is there to say about the mighty GBA? Now is a good time to get one. The prices are right, it sold millions so there are plenty of consoles still out there. Interest in it is high however, as demonstrated by the fact that you can buy aftermarket displays for it now, so expect availability to slowly decrease and prices to go up.
Boxed games will set you back a small premium - it was the last generation in which Nintendo used cardboard boxes so finding one in good quality is incredibly difficult. Being cartridge based however, there is no harm in purchasing your games unboxed. And don't forget about the Everdrive and its peers, which unlock a world of homebrew.
Look out for fake games too. They are common. Learn how to spot fakes. I once had a fake Mario Golf and I found out if was fake after it blew a fuse in my DS Lite.
That's it I think. Great console. Great games. Should be the highlight of any retro fan's collection.
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Everdrive Gameboy and Gameboy Advance
I've had my Gameboy Everdrive for a few months, and my Gameboy Advance Everdrive for about a month. Having installed a backlit screen in my GBA today I have been using the Everdrives for testing purposes, able to quickly load games from all generations of Gameboy. I'm so impressed by these little things, I thought I'd write a bit about them. It's what I do.
First the Gameboy Everdrive. €99 paid.
Initial impressions were not brilliant. The plastic of the case feels brittle, and the printing on the label is low resolution and cheap. The printed circuit board on which the cartridge is based is, however, very nice. Thick, tidy, and well put together, this is what I hoped to see. The cartridge is an exact fit for a real Gameboy Cartridge.
In use it is simple, if basic. Download the firmware from the website, place its folder on a Micro SD card, add some roms, and put it all together. That simple. Well, almost. There is a limit to how many files it can read per folder (perhaps due to Gameboy's limited memory?) so I have separated my ROMs into alphabetical groups of around 100 files per group. They are further split into USA/EU and Japanese releases.
A limitation of the firmware is it cannot automatically sort files alphabetically, so they are listed in the order they were added. There are softwares available to organise the files within the SD card file tables, which is what I had to do to achieve this one thing I thought would be an obvious function.
I haven't had any real problems with any games. I've used the cartridge in a Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Color, various Gameboy Advances and Gameboy Player, and I've come across no real problems. Games load quickly, save games follow as you switch games. Some games glitch in ways they don't in emulators or real cartridges, one example being Castlevania Adventure in which some sprites flicker as other sprites for a brief money. The game otherwise runs fine, and it's a minor fault.
Gameboy Pocket is not a good fit for the Everdrive. It runs just fine, however in just half an hour you'll run into a problem - as the cartridge firmware boots, the screen fades to nothing. Everything still functions, and if you wish to load your last game you can hit start and be on your way. The screen comes back (usually) at this point.
People online suggest it's because AAA batteries don't provide the power to support the Everdrive. This maybe true, somehow. I've tried rechargeables (1.2v) and non-rechargeables (1.5v) and both game similar results. Removing Everdrive and inserting an official cartridge, I had hours of playtime left in the batteries so it's definitely an Everdrive problem.
Used with Gameboy Color or GBA, this is a wonderful thing for carrying a large library in one cartridge. The price is great, and considering the lack of competition in the market today, be happy that the one option is awesome.
Everdrive X5 for Gameboy Advance. €109 paid.
The X5 was a long time coming. Months ago there was no way it was ever going to be a thing. Then suddenly it was going to be a thing. The internet went crazy. I eventually tracked one down.
It's built a lot better than the Gameboy version. The plastic has a firm feel and a nice satin texture. It feels premium in your hand. You'll notice that it pokes out of the cartridge slot, being around halfway between a GBA and GB cartridge in height. Using a classic GBA it's not noticeable, as that is the one and only Gameboy Advance model to have top loaded carts.
I use it is much the same as the Gameboy version and has the same limitations in its file system. It is essentially the same thing - except this one plays GBA games! It also plays NES, Gameboy and Master System games using freely available emulators, with mixed (but mostly good) results.
I've experienced no problems with games so far, with one caveat. I am using ROMs from a GoodGBA complete set, and some of them have not detected the correct save type. It is easy to change this within the file system, and a quick bit of trial and error will fix the problem. Games that I've had trouble with this are: Go Go Beckham, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario World. In the case of the Mario games I was created with a save file corrupted error. Go Go Beckham launched to a black screen after the release team's intro.
Compare the Everdrive X5 to a previous flash cart I owned (EFA Linker II) and it's another world. That cart had space for approximately 5 games, which had to be transferred to a different portion of memory before being played - which took AGES. Contrarily, the Everdrive holds all of the games you'll ever want on a Micro SD card and loads whichever one you want to play in around a second.
And about the SD cards. I have every GBA game released, minus Japanese ones, on a 16GB card. The Gameboy complete all regions set takes a matter of Megabytes. I almost felt wasteful using a 4GB SD card for it, but couldn't find one smaller.
So - both are great cards. The X5 is naturally the better choice given that it supports the fantastic GBA library and does a fair job of supporting Gameboy and other systems. If you absolutely must have the most authentic experience, the Gameboy Everdrive is also a solid piece of kit and well worth a purchase, even if they are a little expensive.
First the Gameboy Everdrive. €99 paid.
Initial impressions were not brilliant. The plastic of the case feels brittle, and the printing on the label is low resolution and cheap. The printed circuit board on which the cartridge is based is, however, very nice. Thick, tidy, and well put together, this is what I hoped to see. The cartridge is an exact fit for a real Gameboy Cartridge.
In use it is simple, if basic. Download the firmware from the website, place its folder on a Micro SD card, add some roms, and put it all together. That simple. Well, almost. There is a limit to how many files it can read per folder (perhaps due to Gameboy's limited memory?) so I have separated my ROMs into alphabetical groups of around 100 files per group. They are further split into USA/EU and Japanese releases.
A limitation of the firmware is it cannot automatically sort files alphabetically, so they are listed in the order they were added. There are softwares available to organise the files within the SD card file tables, which is what I had to do to achieve this one thing I thought would be an obvious function.
I haven't had any real problems with any games. I've used the cartridge in a Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Color, various Gameboy Advances and Gameboy Player, and I've come across no real problems. Games load quickly, save games follow as you switch games. Some games glitch in ways they don't in emulators or real cartridges, one example being Castlevania Adventure in which some sprites flicker as other sprites for a brief money. The game otherwise runs fine, and it's a minor fault.
Gameboy Pocket is not a good fit for the Everdrive. It runs just fine, however in just half an hour you'll run into a problem - as the cartridge firmware boots, the screen fades to nothing. Everything still functions, and if you wish to load your last game you can hit start and be on your way. The screen comes back (usually) at this point.
People online suggest it's because AAA batteries don't provide the power to support the Everdrive. This maybe true, somehow. I've tried rechargeables (1.2v) and non-rechargeables (1.5v) and both game similar results. Removing Everdrive and inserting an official cartridge, I had hours of playtime left in the batteries so it's definitely an Everdrive problem.
Used with Gameboy Color or GBA, this is a wonderful thing for carrying a large library in one cartridge. The price is great, and considering the lack of competition in the market today, be happy that the one option is awesome.
Everdrive X5 for Gameboy Advance. €109 paid.
The X5 was a long time coming. Months ago there was no way it was ever going to be a thing. Then suddenly it was going to be a thing. The internet went crazy. I eventually tracked one down.
It's built a lot better than the Gameboy version. The plastic has a firm feel and a nice satin texture. It feels premium in your hand. You'll notice that it pokes out of the cartridge slot, being around halfway between a GBA and GB cartridge in height. Using a classic GBA it's not noticeable, as that is the one and only Gameboy Advance model to have top loaded carts.
I use it is much the same as the Gameboy version and has the same limitations in its file system. It is essentially the same thing - except this one plays GBA games! It also plays NES, Gameboy and Master System games using freely available emulators, with mixed (but mostly good) results.
I've experienced no problems with games so far, with one caveat. I am using ROMs from a GoodGBA complete set, and some of them have not detected the correct save type. It is easy to change this within the file system, and a quick bit of trial and error will fix the problem. Games that I've had trouble with this are: Go Go Beckham, Yoshi's Island and Super Mario World. In the case of the Mario games I was created with a save file corrupted error. Go Go Beckham launched to a black screen after the release team's intro.
Compare the Everdrive X5 to a previous flash cart I owned (EFA Linker II) and it's another world. That cart had space for approximately 5 games, which had to be transferred to a different portion of memory before being played - which took AGES. Contrarily, the Everdrive holds all of the games you'll ever want on a Micro SD card and loads whichever one you want to play in around a second.
And about the SD cards. I have every GBA game released, minus Japanese ones, on a 16GB card. The Gameboy complete all regions set takes a matter of Megabytes. I almost felt wasteful using a 4GB SD card for it, but couldn't find one smaller.
So - both are great cards. The X5 is naturally the better choice given that it supports the fantastic GBA library and does a fair job of supporting Gameboy and other systems. If you absolutely must have the most authentic experience, the Gameboy Everdrive is also a solid piece of kit and well worth a purchase, even if they are a little expensive.
Deadpan Robot Gameboy Bits
Contact for Deadpan Robot:
Today I received some Gameboy Advance parts from Deadpan Robot - a red shell, a glass screen lens, and a backlit replacement screen complete with 40-pin cable adapter for installation in my AGB-001 (original) GBA. I ordered from them for two reasons: I didn't want to order from China, wait ages, pay loads of EU customs, and I wanted an easy communication in case of problems. They are also from Hertfordshire and I'm a Watford boy, so that caught my eye. Total cost was £76.00 including postage, which Paypal translated to €89.72. Not cheap, but half the cost of an AGS-101 in Amsterdam.
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| The GBA shell is well produced. |
Here are my thoughts on the products.
First of all I'd like to comment on their customer service. I had trouble with their website only iPhone, and later my Mac, not allowing me to select shipping options to Netherlands (they are based in the UK). They responded to my email within a day, and after a little to and fro put it right, and gave me a 10% discount for my trouble. Not bad. Communication was friendly and open.
The products were posted last Thursday, the same day I ordered, and made it across the North Sea by the following Tuesday. Well packaged in a little box, each Item bagged and the screen was well wrapped in bubble wrap and inside a cardboard box.
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| Packaging was top-notch and everything was intact. |
I had a manky old GBA whose screen I had smashed in an earlier frontlighting attempt. The white shell had gone a nasty dark yellow and the screen lens was scratched.
Before I could install the screen, which is a replacement for the GBA SP, I had to modify the shell of my GBA to make space. A raised ridge had to be shaved down, for which I used my Dremmel and a grinding attachment, tidying up the resulting mess with a scalpel. The screen the dropped in place, protective film protecting it throughout. I folded the video cable (too long with the adapter cable added) and installed the buttons and motherboard. The cable slotted into place and the motherboard was screwed down.
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| My old GBA had not aged well. |
Soldering the power cable for the backlight was a real pain. It attaches to a tiny surface-mount component. My soldering iron is large, I need to invest in a finer tip for this delicate work as my main use for it is in building and modifying guitar pedals, using full size components. At first I ended up with a dollop of solder across three legs of two components... after cleaning that up I was able to get the wire soldered in place, and routed away from the edge of the shell.
I got the shell together, placed the screen lens in place, transferred my serial number sticker (using a hot hairdryer and a scalpel) and inserted some batteries.... success!
The screen's brightness seems good, there is no noticeable interference on the screen. So far so good. (The strange flickering you see in the photo is not visible to the naked eye).
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| Success! |
In GBA games I found the colours to be good. It matches the Gameboy Micro's glorious display as far as my eyes tell me. With Gameboy games the colours may be a little over-saturated. I've tried Tetris and Super Mario Land using their Gameboy Colour palettes, and Tetris DX and Links Awakening DX to check GBC native versions. It's certainly not game breaking, and as I can't play GBC games on my Micro, I can't comment on how they would look on that backlight screen. I have read that it's a result of games being made brighter to compensate for the GBA's lack of lighting, which makes some sense.
Brightness is great sitting here in normal indoor daytime light, but lack of adjustment may be a problem for night use during which it might melt my retinas. The display is sharp too. It's a pixel-perfect recreation of the original, so no scaling is at work here to spoil things.
Overall I am very happy with the screen. Apart from the soldering it was very simple to install. The shell modifications may put some people off, as may the tiny space for soldering, however for me the results are perfect. The GBA SP is a lot more difficult to open, and I much prefer the form factor of the original - not to mention the cartridge slot location - so for me this is the best way to enjoy my old games.
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| GBA games look SO good on this display. |
The shell leaves a bit to be desired. It is good, and fits around the motherboard properly, but I had a couple of problems screwing it together. It came with five screws, where ten are needed - three to attach the motherboard, and seven to attach the rear of the case. (EDIT: Looking closer it appears that the screen's added thickness is the problem, causing a lot of outward pressure on the shell. I may open it up later and see if I missed any parts that could be shaved a little further, but I've done so well to leave the inside dust-free I'm hesitant to risk ruining that).
Luckily I had my old GBA shell, and so these screws were available to me. I also have a problem with the one screw that sits inside the battery compartment - it will not screw in enough to hold the case fully closed. (EDIT: I used one of the supplied, shorter, screws and it worked a treat. Again the problem seems to be the screen pressing outward, so I won't do the screws too tight). I'll try one of the shorter screws that came with the shell and see if that solves it.
I also have a problem with the L trigger. It works just fine, but does not spring back in a nice, tactile manner that you'd expect. The R trigger is fine. I've had to slightly loosen the shell screws by L trigger to help with this.
The glass screen lens is a great upgrade to the plastic original. Whilst it won't scratch so easily, I worry about it cracking - but as I look my things I'm sure it will be ok. The wording "Gameboy Advance" at the bottom of the lens is a little rough, but you have to look closely to notice.
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| That little red wire is a pig to solder. |
The final comment concerns installation. There are no instructions for the shell or the screen. There is a section on Deadpan Robot's site, but it is empty. The site says all over the place "site under construction" so I'm sure it will come in time. Lucky for us there are instructional videos on YouTube. I followed this one by Does Not Compute which has all the information you'll need. He also does a follow-up video in which he addresses issues he had with low brightness and low quality image on his replacement screen - issues I didn't have with this one. Overall installation is simple enough if you take time to be careful, but that one piece of soldering is very fiddly and it is easy to mess something up with it. Additionally the screen is not a perfect fit for the original GBA form, and as such expect a few problems squeezing the case back together.
So, thanks DPR for making my day. I love my new GBA in all its backlit glory. I will be in touch when I'm ready to upgrade my SP AGS-001.
Sunday, 25 June 2017
PlayStation 4 Shenanigans
In all my years of computer use I've only ever had one hard drive fail. I have hard drives today that are 15 years old and still work, the 1GB one being particularly useful in its immensity.
Said hard drive failed after a power cut occurred while I was enjoying some time with my Steam catalogue. The drive crashed as best I can tell, which rendered the drive unusable and the data unsalvageable.
Well, that same thing happened last night - except the "power cut" was caused by my one-year-old baby boy yanking the external hard drive from my PS4 while I played Day Of The Tentacle. I can't access the drive from my PS4 or my Mac so I'm calling it dead. At least all it had on it was games that are easy to recover and no personal info for nefarious sorts to find.
It was a blessing in disguise in any case, as I'd filled my 2TB internal and 1GB external drives with games, thanks to the console's requirement to install every game, and had to delete some games to make space.
I'm aware some people do this regularly, without a thought, however - I've been around long enough to understand the fleeting value of these machines and the games we enjoy on them. If that suits you, then fine, but my intention is to enjoy these games in 10, 20, 30 years time, and that means long after the servers are shut down, possibly long after Sony has gone away. Deleting the games from your drive also removes the patches that are regularly installed which means when you reinstall the game in some years time you will have only the original code from the disk. In short, I would like to keep 100% of my library installed at all times for posterity.
As such, I'd previously upgraded the 500GB drive that came with the machine to a 2TB version, and was using the original 500GB one in a USB caddy. Because this is how my brain works, I kept all my disc-based installs on the internal and all my PSN and PS-Plus installs on the external.
So, I went and bought a 4TB USB hard drive. Re-downloaded all my non-disc games overnight (took about 6 hours), then copied all my disc-based games from internal to external so they're all in one place (and so I wouldn't have to reinstall all of them and their updates). This took 4 hours.
Got hold of the 4.71 installation file and put it on a USB stick. Swapped the 2TB drive for the original one and booted up. My saves are automatically stored online thanks to a PS-Plus subscription I pay too much for, which saves a step.
While the firmware was installing I got to thinking - will I even be able to use the games on my external drive, or will it force me to reinstall everything (again)?
Well the answer is yes. It took a long time (we're talking about 111 games) during which I got to watch a "please wait" screen, but then the home screen came back with my games library intact. Great.
Now I'm downloading all my saves. It's also taking ages. Everything this console does takes ages. 10 minutes so far and it's about two thirds done.
6 hours to download my games, 4 hours to transfer the others to the external drive, 10 minutes to swap hard drives and install the firmware, 5 minutes to recognise the games 15 more to download my save games. And now I have ten disc-based games to reinstall.
And to think just the other day I remarked on Twitter that I could select "install", wait, hit start, and be watching the intro to Half-Life all in 40 seconds.
Said hard drive failed after a power cut occurred while I was enjoying some time with my Steam catalogue. The drive crashed as best I can tell, which rendered the drive unusable and the data unsalvageable.
Well, that same thing happened last night - except the "power cut" was caused by my one-year-old baby boy yanking the external hard drive from my PS4 while I played Day Of The Tentacle. I can't access the drive from my PS4 or my Mac so I'm calling it dead. At least all it had on it was games that are easy to recover and no personal info for nefarious sorts to find.
It was a blessing in disguise in any case, as I'd filled my 2TB internal and 1GB external drives with games, thanks to the console's requirement to install every game, and had to delete some games to make space.
I'm aware some people do this regularly, without a thought, however - I've been around long enough to understand the fleeting value of these machines and the games we enjoy on them. If that suits you, then fine, but my intention is to enjoy these games in 10, 20, 30 years time, and that means long after the servers are shut down, possibly long after Sony has gone away. Deleting the games from your drive also removes the patches that are regularly installed which means when you reinstall the game in some years time you will have only the original code from the disk. In short, I would like to keep 100% of my library installed at all times for posterity.
As such, I'd previously upgraded the 500GB drive that came with the machine to a 2TB version, and was using the original 500GB one in a USB caddy. Because this is how my brain works, I kept all my disc-based installs on the internal and all my PSN and PS-Plus installs on the external.
So, I went and bought a 4TB USB hard drive. Re-downloaded all my non-disc games overnight (took about 6 hours), then copied all my disc-based games from internal to external so they're all in one place (and so I wouldn't have to reinstall all of them and their updates). This took 4 hours.
Got hold of the 4.71 installation file and put it on a USB stick. Swapped the 2TB drive for the original one and booted up. My saves are automatically stored online thanks to a PS-Plus subscription I pay too much for, which saves a step.
While the firmware was installing I got to thinking - will I even be able to use the games on my external drive, or will it force me to reinstall everything (again)?
Well the answer is yes. It took a long time (we're talking about 111 games) during which I got to watch a "please wait" screen, but then the home screen came back with my games library intact. Great.
Now I'm downloading all my saves. It's also taking ages. Everything this console does takes ages. 10 minutes so far and it's about two thirds done.
6 hours to download my games, 4 hours to transfer the others to the external drive, 10 minutes to swap hard drives and install the firmware, 5 minutes to recognise the games 15 more to download my save games. And now I have ten disc-based games to reinstall.
And to think just the other day I remarked on Twitter that I could select "install", wait, hit start, and be watching the intro to Half-Life all in 40 seconds.
Friday, 28 April 2017
RetroSpective: Top 5 Retro Gaming Memories
A child of the 80s, coming of age in the 90s, I grew up in small town UK and so my earliest gaming memories include playing on friends' C64s and Spectrums, and my Uncle's Amstrad CPC464. As for our home - we had a Commodore 16 handed down by a different Uncle and I naturally had a nice selection of Systema LCD games that I still find occasionally fun.
As my friends and I entered double digits things changed, and we found ourselves in the 16-bit era. Several friends owned Mega Drives. I was later to the game with an Amiga 500+ coming in late 1991 (Cartoon Classics pack which included Bart Vs The Space Mutants, Captain Planet, and a game I only recently replayed - Lemmings). Later still I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which helped cement my future as a gamer.
So, with no further ado, I share with you my five top retro gaming moments. Those moments that shaped my gaming life in its formative years. In no particular order.
1. Pinball At The Artichoke
In exercising the deepest recesses of forgotten memory I stumbled upon something very sweet. Way back when we still lived in Croxley Green, we would frequent a pub on The Green called The Artichoke. It's still there - it's more of a gastropub these days and I still go there when I'm visiting locally. Back in the 80s they had a pinball table tucked in a corner outside the ladies toilet, and we would spend hours on it while our parents got drunk. Their friends, also drunk, would make sure we never ran out of credits or those small bottles of Coke they have in pubs.
2. St. Osyth
On the Essex coast, just up from Clacton-on-Sea, St. Osyth was home to my grandparents' caravan, used for holidays when my mum and her siblings were young. It was history before I came along, but it meant that the town had a place in my Uncle's heart (the same one who owned the CPC464) and so he'd take me and my cousins there for a day of french cricket and arcade games. Four of us? Well that's the perfect number for Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, The Simpsons, Gauntlet, or Wrestlemania. At 10p a go, even in those days we could enjoy a good few games before it was time to head home.
3. Left 4 Dead
I absolutely hate online gaming. Seriously, it stresses me out. From my first internet connection in 2002, playing Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast for 15p a minute, through 2009's slightly improved and slightly less expensive in the long run 512kbps ADSL, to today's 300Mbps low latency network, I draw no enjoyment from online interaction with dickheads. In 2009 though, something magical happened - I was invited to join a "mature gaming community" called The Art of Warfare (TAW). I'd dabbled a little with Left 4 Dead and found it tremendous fun, so agreed to give it a go with an organised group. Well, to cut a long story short, I quickly moved up the ranks and ended up running the L4D division of said community which did wonders for my self-confidence and, over a few hundred hours of gaming gave me such enjoyment that I doubt I will ever match. I also have crippling RSI in my right hand from the intense use of a mouse, and a handful of lifelong friends that I owe to that time.
4. My Amiga 500+
I remember my dad bringing this home for me. I wasn't expecting it, but my word was it exciting. I remember him helping me to set it up, plugging in the RF converter so it would work with the TV (he may have bought me that at the same time), powering it on, and encouraging me to work out that the animated graphic was directing me to insert a disk. I recently rediscovered my old Amiga library (much of it at the time courtesy of X-Copy2) with the help of an emulator, and the sound of the disk drive took me right back to my old bedroom, the tiny desk and the red metal chair with plastic seat that collapsed one day, cheekily telling me I'd become too big for it. It's a rare positive memory of my father, and I cherish it.
5. Super Mario All Stars
This is a key game (collection) for me. Despite what you've heard a hundred thousand bazillion times on YouTube about the massive importance of the Nintendo Entertainment System, it simply wasn't that important in the UK. I knew three people who had one, and they all had rich dads. However, Super Mario Bros had attained something of a legendary status in my mind, at least in part thanks to playing the games with those three people - and in no small part due to the fantastic Super Mario Land games on Game Boy that were far more readily available. When I was able to finally own a SNES, I spent days and days deciding between the Super Mario All Stars or the Street Fighter II Turbo pack-in. If you understand that at this time I was incredibly lucky to get the console at all, and in several years of ownership I only ever had four games, then you'll see how important this choice was at the time. So I chose Mario, and set in place the pieces that would ultimately begin a (so far) lifelong love affair with Nintendo. Easily the most important video gaming item I ever owned.
So what about you? Did any of these points align with your experience or trigger your memories? Do you have any of your own to add? Go write something in the comments. If nothing else it makes me feel good.
As my friends and I entered double digits things changed, and we found ourselves in the 16-bit era. Several friends owned Mega Drives. I was later to the game with an Amiga 500+ coming in late 1991 (Cartoon Classics pack which included Bart Vs The Space Mutants, Captain Planet, and a game I only recently replayed - Lemmings). Later still I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which helped cement my future as a gamer.
So, with no further ado, I share with you my five top retro gaming moments. Those moments that shaped my gaming life in its formative years. In no particular order.
1. Pinball At The Artichoke
In exercising the deepest recesses of forgotten memory I stumbled upon something very sweet. Way back when we still lived in Croxley Green, we would frequent a pub on The Green called The Artichoke. It's still there - it's more of a gastropub these days and I still go there when I'm visiting locally. Back in the 80s they had a pinball table tucked in a corner outside the ladies toilet, and we would spend hours on it while our parents got drunk. Their friends, also drunk, would make sure we never ran out of credits or those small bottles of Coke they have in pubs.
2. St. Osyth
On the Essex coast, just up from Clacton-on-Sea, St. Osyth was home to my grandparents' caravan, used for holidays when my mum and her siblings were young. It was history before I came along, but it meant that the town had a place in my Uncle's heart (the same one who owned the CPC464) and so he'd take me and my cousins there for a day of french cricket and arcade games. Four of us? Well that's the perfect number for Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, The Simpsons, Gauntlet, or Wrestlemania. At 10p a go, even in those days we could enjoy a good few games before it was time to head home.
3. Left 4 Dead
I absolutely hate online gaming. Seriously, it stresses me out. From my first internet connection in 2002, playing Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast for 15p a minute, through 2009's slightly improved and slightly less expensive in the long run 512kbps ADSL, to today's 300Mbps low latency network, I draw no enjoyment from online interaction with dickheads. In 2009 though, something magical happened - I was invited to join a "mature gaming community" called The Art of Warfare (TAW). I'd dabbled a little with Left 4 Dead and found it tremendous fun, so agreed to give it a go with an organised group. Well, to cut a long story short, I quickly moved up the ranks and ended up running the L4D division of said community which did wonders for my self-confidence and, over a few hundred hours of gaming gave me such enjoyment that I doubt I will ever match. I also have crippling RSI in my right hand from the intense use of a mouse, and a handful of lifelong friends that I owe to that time.
4. My Amiga 500+
I remember my dad bringing this home for me. I wasn't expecting it, but my word was it exciting. I remember him helping me to set it up, plugging in the RF converter so it would work with the TV (he may have bought me that at the same time), powering it on, and encouraging me to work out that the animated graphic was directing me to insert a disk. I recently rediscovered my old Amiga library (much of it at the time courtesy of X-Copy2) with the help of an emulator, and the sound of the disk drive took me right back to my old bedroom, the tiny desk and the red metal chair with plastic seat that collapsed one day, cheekily telling me I'd become too big for it. It's a rare positive memory of my father, and I cherish it.
5. Super Mario All Stars
This is a key game (collection) for me. Despite what you've heard a hundred thousand bazillion times on YouTube about the massive importance of the Nintendo Entertainment System, it simply wasn't that important in the UK. I knew three people who had one, and they all had rich dads. However, Super Mario Bros had attained something of a legendary status in my mind, at least in part thanks to playing the games with those three people - and in no small part due to the fantastic Super Mario Land games on Game Boy that were far more readily available. When I was able to finally own a SNES, I spent days and days deciding between the Super Mario All Stars or the Street Fighter II Turbo pack-in. If you understand that at this time I was incredibly lucky to get the console at all, and in several years of ownership I only ever had four games, then you'll see how important this choice was at the time. So I chose Mario, and set in place the pieces that would ultimately begin a (so far) lifelong love affair with Nintendo. Easily the most important video gaming item I ever owned.
So what about you? Did any of these points align with your experience or trigger your memories? Do you have any of your own to add? Go write something in the comments. If nothing else it makes me feel good.
Friday, 7 April 2017
What Would I Tell 21-Year-Old Me?
I recently saw this question posed in an Instagram post and naturally it got me thinking.
I'm 36. 21 seems so long ago, and yet as if it were yesterday. A lot has happened in the interim years, a lot has changed - in myself, in the world, in the people I know. I'm married, happily, and have a beautiful baby boy and I am blessed to be a stay at home dad who cares for him 4 days of the week while his mummy works to bring the money in.
I'm in a band, which is fun and has some potential to become something in the local scene (well I would say that). I want for nothing, besides material things that I can save for.
You could say my life is as close to perfect as anyone has a right to expect. So - what would I tell 21-year-old me?
To borrow from Nike's advertising slogan - "Just do it", or words to that effect.
My whole life only one person has truly held me back - me. Sure, I can point to various authority figures and ascribe an amount of blame to them for failing to help me believe in myself, for putting me down when I needed lifting up, for telling me "music is a hobby". But ultimately I must accept responsibility for myself and my actions and decisions along the way. Every time I took the easy way out, or let depression and anxiety of the potential negative outcomes keep me from even trying, I let myself down.
Once upon a time I was a promising musician. I had a very small following locally who would ask when is the next gig, thrilled to be part of what I was doing. But I had to "get a proper job" which only increased my anxiety and lowered my energy levels such that I eventually stopped pursuing the dream altogether. Use it or lose it as they say.
Now, a married father, my capacity for taking any kind of risk is limited by the need to support my family. I am in a band now, my third in two years of living in Netherlands, and the first that truly feels right. Like most of the other guys in the band, family commitment prevents it from being much more than a hobby at this time. Sure, we have the opportunity to find our place in the local scene, to become a part of something comfortable and exciting, but I can hardly run off on tour and shirk my responsibilities at home.
So, 21-year-old me. Just do it. Get out there, make a name for yourself, find your place, before it's too late and your place is at home. Before you wake up, look in the mirror and see a fat, balding man approaching middle age.
Just do it.
I'm 36. 21 seems so long ago, and yet as if it were yesterday. A lot has happened in the interim years, a lot has changed - in myself, in the world, in the people I know. I'm married, happily, and have a beautiful baby boy and I am blessed to be a stay at home dad who cares for him 4 days of the week while his mummy works to bring the money in.
I'm in a band, which is fun and has some potential to become something in the local scene (well I would say that). I want for nothing, besides material things that I can save for.
You could say my life is as close to perfect as anyone has a right to expect. So - what would I tell 21-year-old me?
To borrow from Nike's advertising slogan - "Just do it", or words to that effect.
My whole life only one person has truly held me back - me. Sure, I can point to various authority figures and ascribe an amount of blame to them for failing to help me believe in myself, for putting me down when I needed lifting up, for telling me "music is a hobby". But ultimately I must accept responsibility for myself and my actions and decisions along the way. Every time I took the easy way out, or let depression and anxiety of the potential negative outcomes keep me from even trying, I let myself down.
Once upon a time I was a promising musician. I had a very small following locally who would ask when is the next gig, thrilled to be part of what I was doing. But I had to "get a proper job" which only increased my anxiety and lowered my energy levels such that I eventually stopped pursuing the dream altogether. Use it or lose it as they say.
Now, a married father, my capacity for taking any kind of risk is limited by the need to support my family. I am in a band now, my third in two years of living in Netherlands, and the first that truly feels right. Like most of the other guys in the band, family commitment prevents it from being much more than a hobby at this time. Sure, we have the opportunity to find our place in the local scene, to become a part of something comfortable and exciting, but I can hardly run off on tour and shirk my responsibilities at home.
So, 21-year-old me. Just do it. Get out there, make a name for yourself, find your place, before it's too late and your place is at home. Before you wake up, look in the mirror and see a fat, balding man approaching middle age.
Just do it.
Monday, 6 March 2017
Hakchi2 and the NES Mini Classic
In this post I shan't describe the process of adding NES games to your NES Mini Classic, as it's been noted elsewhere. It's really quite simple, and if you have the wherewithal to obtain the Rom images then you will get through it without difficulty.
My intention here is to document a series of difficulties I had running the provided Windows software on my Mac. (tl;dr version first).
tl;dr
If using a Mac with Parallels (and possibly other virtual machine options) to run Windows to install the Hakchi2 hack on a NES Mini Classic, make sure to run the hack software from the virtual C: drive under Parallels.
In order to maximise compatibility and to avoid game speed issues, be sure to use American version ROMs (usually marked with "[U]" within the file name.
Full
Wine (using Winebottler) didn't like it much. The software didn't look right, couldn't access the internet to download the cover art, and couldn't install the required driver to control the Nintendo hardware over USB.
I had a Windows 8 update disc to hand. The update edition only works for a while before it locks you out, but I'd only need a few hours so I went ahead and installed the trial version of Parallels 12, and on its virtual machine went my Windows 8. Everything was going swimmingly, and when I used Parallels to open Hakchi2 it looked like a true Windows program and ran as it should - including simple drag and drop functionality from macOS's Finder.
After several hours of adding games to the list and selecting the best available cover art I ran the process to install the extra games to my NES Mini (248 to be precise - whilst it holds more I don't want all the chaff). It seemed to be going well until it told me to wait for the power light to go out to continue - the light never went out, instead blinking slowly. I unplugged the console from my Mac and tried to power it on - no luck, it was stuck in this slow blinking mode with nothing on the screen.
I trawled forums looking for a solution but all I found was examples of the same problem, all using Parallels, but no solution, so I went back to basics.
My Hakchi2 folder was on my Mac's desktop, which Parallels has no problem accessing. I copied it to the root of the virtual C: drive of the virtual machine and ran it again (the copied folder retained the game files and cover art, as well as my list within the software).
Everything went right, and after a couple of restarts I had a working NES Mini Classic with a couple hundred extra games on it!
Doing some play testing, I discovered that some games ran way too fast to be playable, and some had terrible artefacts on screen making them unplayable - though only a couple suffered his second problem.
More forum digging and I found the (simple if you know how worldwide gaming was back in the day) answer. The basic emulation within the console's firmware is based on a 60hz output, as in the USA in the pre-HD era. The games that were running too fast were European roms, which I had tended to use, being from that territory. They are programmed to run on 50hz hardware, and so in this instance we're running 20% too fast.
An easy, though time consuming, solution had me going through my games list one by one, replacing any European rom images with USA versions where applicable, and reflashing the console. I took the opportunity, given my now expert status, to increase the number of games I added to around 400, intending this to be the final
attempt (I don't want to pay €79 for Parallels after the trial!). Any games only available in Europe I simply deleted from my list - a shame, but they aren't enjoyable at that speed.
Now I have a NES Mini Classic with 440ish games installed, the vast majority of which run perfectly.
My intention here is to document a series of difficulties I had running the provided Windows software on my Mac. (tl;dr version first).
tl;dr
If using a Mac with Parallels (and possibly other virtual machine options) to run Windows to install the Hakchi2 hack on a NES Mini Classic, make sure to run the hack software from the virtual C: drive under Parallels.
In order to maximise compatibility and to avoid game speed issues, be sure to use American version ROMs (usually marked with "[U]" within the file name.
Full
Wine (using Winebottler) didn't like it much. The software didn't look right, couldn't access the internet to download the cover art, and couldn't install the required driver to control the Nintendo hardware over USB.
I had a Windows 8 update disc to hand. The update edition only works for a while before it locks you out, but I'd only need a few hours so I went ahead and installed the trial version of Parallels 12, and on its virtual machine went my Windows 8. Everything was going swimmingly, and when I used Parallels to open Hakchi2 it looked like a true Windows program and ran as it should - including simple drag and drop functionality from macOS's Finder.
After several hours of adding games to the list and selecting the best available cover art I ran the process to install the extra games to my NES Mini (248 to be precise - whilst it holds more I don't want all the chaff). It seemed to be going well until it told me to wait for the power light to go out to continue - the light never went out, instead blinking slowly. I unplugged the console from my Mac and tried to power it on - no luck, it was stuck in this slow blinking mode with nothing on the screen.
I trawled forums looking for a solution but all I found was examples of the same problem, all using Parallels, but no solution, so I went back to basics.
My Hakchi2 folder was on my Mac's desktop, which Parallels has no problem accessing. I copied it to the root of the virtual C: drive of the virtual machine and ran it again (the copied folder retained the game files and cover art, as well as my list within the software).
Everything went right, and after a couple of restarts I had a working NES Mini Classic with a couple hundred extra games on it!
Doing some play testing, I discovered that some games ran way too fast to be playable, and some had terrible artefacts on screen making them unplayable - though only a couple suffered his second problem.
More forum digging and I found the (simple if you know how worldwide gaming was back in the day) answer. The basic emulation within the console's firmware is based on a 60hz output, as in the USA in the pre-HD era. The games that were running too fast were European roms, which I had tended to use, being from that territory. They are programmed to run on 50hz hardware, and so in this instance we're running 20% too fast.
An easy, though time consuming, solution had me going through my games list one by one, replacing any European rom images with USA versions where applicable, and reflashing the console. I took the opportunity, given my now expert status, to increase the number of games I added to around 400, intending this to be the final
attempt (I don't want to pay €79 for Parallels after the trial!). Any games only available in Europe I simply deleted from my list - a shame, but they aren't enjoyable at that speed.
Now I have a NES Mini Classic with 440ish games installed, the vast majority of which run perfectly.
Monday, 16 January 2017
Why I Cancelled My Switch Pre-Order
Today I cancelled my Switch pre-order.
The reasons are manifold, and some have been repeated over and over by seemingly everyone, but here they are - my reasons.
1) The price. Actually I think the price is great. €300 or thereabouts for a brand new console. However, it's money I can spend better elsewhere right now - for example putting it towards a new guitar amp I need now I'm no longer playing bass in a band, but back on guitar. If there were any bundled games, or even a discounted Zelda bundle, I'd be more interested.
2) Lack of exciting launch (window) titles. Yes yes I know Zelda is coming, but I can buy that on Wii U (which I already own) for €60 without having to buy another console. 1-2 Switch, Bomberman, Just fucking Dance. No thank you, not for anything close to retail price especially. Arms looks like a fun tech demo, but not a full game, and the jury's out on Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo have yet to disappoint me with a Super Mario game, and I won't jump on the "it's the true sequel to Super Mario 64 we've been waiting for" bandwagon (Sunshine being a fantastic game with a '64-style layout already...) but the presentation didn't impress me in the slightest. I'll wait and see how it looks when it's finished before I make a console purchase based on that game.
3) The cost of accessories. Yes, this is essentially a subheading for point 1. The extra controllers, and especially the spare dock, cost an insane amount of money. Seriously, I've put off buying a second DualShock 4 because it costs €65. €80 though for a pair of JoyCons, or €60 for a Switch Pro controller? No chance. And the plastic steering wheel adapters? They're ok at €15 for two, but couldn't they have been a cheaper pack in for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as they were with the Wii version? Ah Mario Kart - that brings me to perhaps my biggest reason for cancelling.
4) Remakes, remasters, and repurchasing. Sure, if you skipped Wii U you won't have Mario Kart 8. Maybe you enjoyed earlier Rayman games, but haven't played Legends yet. It's perhaps even feasible that you may not have played Skyrim. But Switch's launch window has altogether too many remakes - and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the one that really gets my goat. Collecting all the DLC in one package is nice, and the ability to carry two items harks back to my favourite in the series Double Dash but come on, why isn't this a new game with new tracks and new ideas?
It's not just modern games being remade - I'm also getting sick of Nintendo's money grabbing ways with their old software. I'm as guilty of helping this as anyone - I've purchased Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 on Wii, Wii U and 3DS. Not to mention on NES, SNES and Gameboy Advance. In this modern age, however, it would be a nice touch if we could keep our purchases tied to our account rather than our console, and enjoy them across any and all of them. We pay good money for the games and the consoles, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect something that has been normal for over 10 years on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, and nearly as long on iOS and Android. They should also fix the dark, blurry emulators on Wii U.
5) I have too many games to get through already. Hey look, this isn't Nintendo's fault at all! I have so many games on so many systems that I'd like to get through, and the main difficulty I have in doing this is that I keep buying more systems and more games. I have games as far back as Xbox and PS2 that I'd like to complete, as well as several RPGs on Wii and PS3. That's not to mention 80-odd games on PS4 and 25 on Wii U, AND 25 on 3DS, 95% of which I haven't finished - and I'll be adding Resident Evil 7, Kingdom Hearts I.5 & II.5 Remix to those in the next few weeks. And Zelda. Don't forget Zelda. So yeah, a new console will not aid me in catching up.
---
So there you go. The main reasons I cancelled my Switch pre-order. The last console I bought at launch was the GameCube. It gave me many of my greatest gaming experiences, and I've owned most every mainstream console released since 1990. These days though, it seems a wiser move to sit back and see how the machine's first couple of years go before making a decision.
The tech sure looks exciting, and it's great to see Nintendo looking outside the box - such as in 1-2 Switch, which encourages new ways to interact with your opponents. However the company seems increasingly to be doing it for the money rather than for the joy of gaming (of course the purpose of a company is to make money, I know. But it should not be to the detriment of the user-base or the final product).
The reasons are manifold, and some have been repeated over and over by seemingly everyone, but here they are - my reasons.
1) The price. Actually I think the price is great. €300 or thereabouts for a brand new console. However, it's money I can spend better elsewhere right now - for example putting it towards a new guitar amp I need now I'm no longer playing bass in a band, but back on guitar. If there were any bundled games, or even a discounted Zelda bundle, I'd be more interested.
2) Lack of exciting launch (window) titles. Yes yes I know Zelda is coming, but I can buy that on Wii U (which I already own) for €60 without having to buy another console. 1-2 Switch, Bomberman, Just fucking Dance. No thank you, not for anything close to retail price especially. Arms looks like a fun tech demo, but not a full game, and the jury's out on Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo have yet to disappoint me with a Super Mario game, and I won't jump on the "it's the true sequel to Super Mario 64 we've been waiting for" bandwagon (Sunshine being a fantastic game with a '64-style layout already...) but the presentation didn't impress me in the slightest. I'll wait and see how it looks when it's finished before I make a console purchase based on that game.
3) The cost of accessories. Yes, this is essentially a subheading for point 1. The extra controllers, and especially the spare dock, cost an insane amount of money. Seriously, I've put off buying a second DualShock 4 because it costs €65. €80 though for a pair of JoyCons, or €60 for a Switch Pro controller? No chance. And the plastic steering wheel adapters? They're ok at €15 for two, but couldn't they have been a cheaper pack in for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as they were with the Wii version? Ah Mario Kart - that brings me to perhaps my biggest reason for cancelling.
4) Remakes, remasters, and repurchasing. Sure, if you skipped Wii U you won't have Mario Kart 8. Maybe you enjoyed earlier Rayman games, but haven't played Legends yet. It's perhaps even feasible that you may not have played Skyrim. But Switch's launch window has altogether too many remakes - and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the one that really gets my goat. Collecting all the DLC in one package is nice, and the ability to carry two items harks back to my favourite in the series Double Dash but come on, why isn't this a new game with new tracks and new ideas?
It's not just modern games being remade - I'm also getting sick of Nintendo's money grabbing ways with their old software. I'm as guilty of helping this as anyone - I've purchased Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 on Wii, Wii U and 3DS. Not to mention on NES, SNES and Gameboy Advance. In this modern age, however, it would be a nice touch if we could keep our purchases tied to our account rather than our console, and enjoy them across any and all of them. We pay good money for the games and the consoles, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect something that has been normal for over 10 years on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, and nearly as long on iOS and Android. They should also fix the dark, blurry emulators on Wii U.
5) I have too many games to get through already. Hey look, this isn't Nintendo's fault at all! I have so many games on so many systems that I'd like to get through, and the main difficulty I have in doing this is that I keep buying more systems and more games. I have games as far back as Xbox and PS2 that I'd like to complete, as well as several RPGs on Wii and PS3. That's not to mention 80-odd games on PS4 and 25 on Wii U, AND 25 on 3DS, 95% of which I haven't finished - and I'll be adding Resident Evil 7, Kingdom Hearts I.5 & II.5 Remix to those in the next few weeks. And Zelda. Don't forget Zelda. So yeah, a new console will not aid me in catching up.
---
So there you go. The main reasons I cancelled my Switch pre-order. The last console I bought at launch was the GameCube. It gave me many of my greatest gaming experiences, and I've owned most every mainstream console released since 1990. These days though, it seems a wiser move to sit back and see how the machine's first couple of years go before making a decision.
The tech sure looks exciting, and it's great to see Nintendo looking outside the box - such as in 1-2 Switch, which encourages new ways to interact with your opponents. However the company seems increasingly to be doing it for the money rather than for the joy of gaming (of course the purpose of a company is to make money, I know. But it should not be to the detriment of the user-base or the final product).
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