So Many Games to Try (The First Being ActRaiser)

I have a large collection of new games I'm going to try out and review. I'll be posting some commentary here and the corresponding review on PrezKennedy.org. I'll be going through a large catalog of Nintendo, Super Nintendo, GameBoy, and Genesis games over the course of the next several months. Obviously, some of them are going to suck royally so I doubt I'll even complete them... but I will mention the ones that are worth getting if you can still find them.

Last night for instance, I was playing ActRaiser, an old game for the Super Nintendo. I actually ended up playing it for about two hours... fighting enemies and building up my towns. Unfortunately the town-building element isn't very complex, but it's still fun to pass the time with. I'll have the review up soon on PrezKennedy.org...

FarCry on a Radeon 9800PRO

I've enjoyed playing FarCry since it was released. Why, I remember playing the demo levels over and over because they were just that much fun. I enjoyed exploiting some of the flaws in the demo so I could just drive around on the PT boat and check out the various islands. Back then I was using a GeForce 4 MX440. In August I bought a GeForce FX5700LE, almost specifically so I could use better settings in FarCry, but unfortunately... it just doesn't have the horsepower to run newer games. I ran 3DMark03 and it only managed to score around 1200. Pretty sad for a new card huh? Well, I finally put in the Radeon 9800PRO my friend gave me (he upgraded to an GeForce FX5950), and boy, the difference was phenomenal! I went from getting around 1000 in 3DMark03, to around 5300!

I can run FarCry at its maximum settings and it runs perfectly. I was drooling when I saw the lighting and shadow effects. It looks simply stunning. It reminds me of the first time I saw the lights swinging in Donkey Kong Country, and how realistic they looked. The difference here is that the light can be shot, making the light and shadows dance in the room. The water effects are beautiful too, the fluidity of it all makes it look so realistic. The only thing it needs are water droplets and footprints in the sand to complete the realistic look.

Now I'll definitely need to complete the game. I have no excuses to avoid it since it runs so beautifully. Looks like I know what I'll be doing this weekend (inbetween projects...)

Super Mario Brothers 3

I consider Super Mario Brothers 3 to be one of the classic games. Nintendo apparently agrees, as they've rereleased it on more than one occasion in the Super Mario All-Stars compilation and a slightly remade version for Super Mario Advance 4.

I bought the original edition of the game when it came out back in 1990, when I was just seven years old. I still remember staying up a little late to play it, with my mom and brother watching me play. It wasn't a very difficult game other than a few parts, and I'm fairly certain I still haven't visited every single level in it... and I probably never will since I know the secrets to get the warp whistles and jump right to World 8. Besides, World 7, the Pipe World, was an annoying complex of mazes and other hazards.

I've beaten Super Mario Brothers 3 several times, and I'll tell you its one of the best games around. If you'd like to see someone beat it using an emulator (to pull off some crazy moves), you should check out that and some other stuff on Open Source Gaming's Miscellaneous Downloads. I felt it was worth showing to others, even if it was fabricated. Isn't it amazing what you can do with an emulator? I remember spending untold lives trying to get through some of those levels. I would have to imagine I'd spend a lot more lives trying to beat the game today.

If you've never played Super Mario Brothers 3, I highly suggest you pick it up for the GameBoy Advance SP or the Nintendo DS. Honestly though, how could you have never played Super Mario Brothers 3? :-P

My First Super NES Game

Christmas 1995...

The entire family was in Maryland for Christmas that year. My grandfather and uncle from Illinois had traveled nearly 900 miles to visit us. It would be an exciting Christmas... and a memorable one too.

The whole family was downstairs getting ready for Christmas dinner and we were playing our very first Super Nintendo game, even though the SNES had been out for a few years by that point. Donkey Kong Country, a revolutionary game in the graphics department, was easily able to surpass anything else out on the market. Compared to even the 32X, it was simply beautiful. The pre-rendered graphics allowed the SNES to run the game, even though the CPU is slower than the Sega Genesis.

We had been playing it almost all day, and by dinnertime, we had reached the Treetop village and we were fighting our way through tons of barrel shooting puzzles. Right when we were about to turn the game off to go eat dinner, the power went out. Fortunately we had saved earlier, but some of our progress had been lost along the way.

We would end up enjoying a candlelit dinner, since the power was out. Strangely enough, this power outage only affected our street, and even then it didn't affect one of the houses at the top of the street. I guess they were on a different line or something. So, we ended up having a memorable Christmas, and that's the same time I got Donkey Kong Country, still one of my most highly regarded console games. Even though we didn't get to play it that night because the power didn't turn back on until around 2 AM, we still had an enjoyable night with the family celebrating Christmas. :-)

Remember your Family...

I know that sometimes those games really can suck you and you totally forget about what's going on around you. Most notably, what your family is up to. I've had the bad habit of paying more attention to my games than my family... even when they were from far out of town. I urge any serious gamer not to make that same mistake, since you'll regret missing those experiences someday. I for one have spent many a Thanksgiving playing computer or Nintendo games instead of spending time with my family and Grandparents, and now that family has changed so much since I was little. I could have spent a lot more time with my Grandmother before she died, and I could have spent a lot more time with everyone else that has visited on those special occasions.

I think it's important to remember that the game will always be there, but your family members may not be. You may as well put down the controller when far off relatives are visiting, because there will always be tomorrow when no one is around so you can play your games. Besides, some of those games aren't that great to be making this tradeoff anyways. I mean seriously, Command & Conquer: Renegade? Boy, I really wish I had spent more time with my relatives instead of playing my way through that game. I could have just waited a day and beaten it the next. Instead, I rushed to finish it while family was visiting,

What a silly, silly mistake!!

P.S. This also applies to girlfriends and wives. They really don't like when you pick your video games over them. Just a tiny bit of advice if you didn't already know!

Worst Game Ever - Back to the Future for NES

When people complain about Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. for being a really lame game that was really buggy and didn't even work out the box... I agree with them. But, when they say it's the worst game ever, our paths diverge. I've played Back to the Future on the NES, and that was the worst experience I've ever had. I felt so stupid after buying that game that for the longest time I wouldn't even mention that I owned it.

The game starts out in Hill Valley, 1955. You have to evade obstacles, crazy people with hoola-hoops and other things while you skateboard up towards the top of the screen. The first level, while annoying, is fairly easy to complete. Unfortunately, the second level is where it all goes downhill. Downhill to the point that in all the years that I've owned the game, I've never tried to beat it. Basically it plays a little like Root Beer tapper, except you throw stuff at goons in order to keep them off your back. You have to take out 100 of them to progress. Before making it even halfway, it becomes incredibly difficult. You may as well pick up a Game Genie if you want to progress beyond that point.

I've never bothered with the game since then. It's simply so bad I can't stand to even consider popping it in and playing it. I just thought it would be a fitting way to start of my new gaming experiences journal. :-)

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