Category: Retro Review

Super Smash Bros 64

super smash bro

I may not be a hardcore fighting game fan but damn I loved me some classic Smash Bros. On Nintendo 64 I first encountered this classic which brought such iconic Nintendo characters together like Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Kirby, Yoshi, Star Fox, Samus, and Pikachu to battle each other in classic settings from there respective games. Besides fighting one another they also faced new threats like Metal-Mario, Giant Donkey Kong – which required two other fighters to help take down, as well whole teams of Yoshis,  Kirbys, and Polygons all culminating in the ultimate fight against the Master Hand. Besides your powers, you have a series of cool weapons at your disposal like Poke balls, the Star Wand, Mario’s hammer and even the Star from Mario Kart 64. Unlike most fighting games, depleting your health doesn’t kill you; the more damage you take, the easier it is to get smashed off the map which makes for some intense fights, especially between friends. Honestly Smash Bros 64 is my favorite fighting game ever ( I’m untouchable with Pikachu). The maps, the characters, the weapons, and music are ingrained in my memory long after my childhood and my N64. I seriously recommend this game, especially with a friend, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragonball Z:The Frieza Saga

dbz frieza

After defeating Ginyu at the end of the Dragonball Z: The Namek Saga , Goku is rushed into a Revitalization chamber while Ginyu hops around, stuck in the body of a frog. Frieza, a tyrant of seemingly unstoppable power, is approaching. While Vegeta sleeps, Gohan, Krillin, and Dende attempt to summon the dragon undisturbed. They manage to revive Piccolo and there Kami as well, and have Piccolo sent to Namek where he fuses with a dying Nail, becoming stronger than he thought possible. Frieza finds them, unleashing a new transformation just when our heroes believe they can win. Frieza brutally kills Vegeta, who tearfully tells Goku that he was a slave under Frieza his whole life and he never had a chance to be anything else. Angered Goku faces against Frieza’s final form but even with all his strength he can’t match Frieza’s might. His final solution: drop the biggest Spirit Bomb on Frieza he possibly can, having his friends try to hold him off. At first, it appears the bomb worked, but there hopes are quickly smashed when Frieza emerges, wounded and pissed, killing Krillin and mortally wounding Piccolo in a blink of the eye. Goku is furious, unleashing his rage in a frightening display, becoming the golden haired, aqua eyed Super Saiyan of legend. Suddenly the tables turn on Frieza, who is suddenly completely outmatched. However, he has a final transformation under his belt and uses his power to destroy the planet. Can Goku defeat Frieza before Namek explodes?

Here is where DBZ sold me. Frieza is a simple villain but his multiple, strange transformations and iconic voice make him one of the series most memorable bad guys. We see Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta, and Piccolo at some of there most badass but let’s face, Goku steals the show with his Super Saiyan transformation. Super Saiyan Goku vs Frieza on dying Namek is on of anime’s greatest battles and Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation set the standard for epic transformations in anime for decades to come. The finale is suspenseful as hell and ends on a great cliff hanger. This is one of my favorite sagas, despite the fact it’s pretty much one fight and Frieza does get annoying at times ( not to mention that son of a bitch can’t tell time to save his ass) but because of the awesomeness that is Super Saiyan and the suspenseful as hell climax and satisfying as hell end to Frieza, it’s one of my favorites and well worth a watch. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bioshock 2

bs 2 A great lesson in life is just because that its better to have small flaws than fix them and break perfection. While Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games, Bioshock 2 had a lot to live up to. Let’s descend into Rapture again..

After the fall of Ryan and Atlas, a new force took over by means of Sophia Lamb’s “Family”, turning the Splicers and down-trotted of Rapture into a cult. Before Rapture’s decline under Ryan, Lamb had her exceptional daughter turned into a Little Sister, protected by Delta, one of the first Big Daddies. Lamb, using a plasmid to control him, makes Delta seemingly kill himself so she can experiment on her daughter more, trying to make her the messiah of the Family. 1968, Delta is woken up again from a coma by Tenebuam, feeling his Little Sister Eleanor call out to him. Can Delta save Eleanor from the clutches of her mother?

There are some tiny improvements to Bioshock 2 but it doesn’t hold a candle to the first. The Story, while fine, feels copy and paste in certain areas; what hurts it is the fact that the choices you make don’t carry the same weight at the end as they do in the first. Although the weapons themselves are bigger, they don’t seem to do the damage they did in the first game either. I do like the fact you can use melee attacks with every weapon and the drill does some heavy damage later. While most of the plasmids and gene tonics are carried over from the first game, there are new enemies including the badass Big Sisters who were a great addition to the series. The characters are pretty good. The graphics are a huge upgrade but I can’t help but notice that they try too hard at times to be creepy with the setting. It was cool to live as a Big Daddy and gather Adam with the Little Sisters but like much of the game itself, it does get stale. Things like hacking, photographing enemies, and tonic storage are really simplified  combined with much more straight forward missions makes the game lose some charm. In the end, Bioshock 2 is a good game that could have been great but still worth trying if you loved the first. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bioshock

bioshock

There are few games I’d ever give a 10 out of 10 in life: Batman: Arkham Asylum , Red Dead Redemption , and Mass Effect 2 to name a few. Bioshock is one of them. I’ve played the game through half a dozen times over two console generations and I’m still finding new things in the desolate, leaky city of Rapture.

We play as Jack who is flying over the mid Atlantic in the year 1960. His plane crashes and he finds himself swimming to a lighthouse, finding only a pod that takes him to the underwater metropolis that is Rapture, where the science and art aren’t hindered by government or god. On the outside Rapture is gorgeous and a true sight to behold. Inside is decadent madness. Addicts called Splicers run free, addicted to the freedom to rewrite there genetic codes with Adam and plasmids. Mutated little girls and there hauntingly armored suit protectors, the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, extract Adam out of the corpses that litter the streets. Rapture was founded and run by Andrew Ryan, a visionary and business tycoon who doesn’t want Jack to leave, especially when aided by Atlas. Would ya kindly remember ” a man chooses and a slave obeys”

Bioshock is more than a FPS game. Besides guns, you get to partake in various plasmids and gene tonics, giving you a cool mix of powers and buffs. The detail in your skin when you change plasmids is one of my favorite parts of the game. The world is fascinating and creepy, hearing the rambling of the Splicers and the groans and thunderous footsteps of the Big Daddies. The characters are well done and the the story is a fantastic piece of smart science fiction. The graphics are pretty good on Ps4. There are a few fetch quests that are a pain the ass and there’s a hell of a difficulty spike after easy mode so I recommend going through on easy for collectibles. The DLC, besides a fun horde mode, also has a pretty interesting mode where you have to use your brain to traverse the levels. In the end, Bioshock is a classic that I can’t  recommend more. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Island of Terror

isle of terror

This goes out to my parents, Duke and Marsha, who watched this movie all the time when I was a kid amongst dozens of others. This stuck out to me for a variety of reasons I’ll get to at the very end.

Essentially we begin with an instance of man playing god, creating a strange series of lifeforms that could best be called “turtles”. These turtles are in fact giant, lumpy creatures that kill with long stinger-ed tentacles, liquefying the victim’s bones and fluid and sucking them dry ( think early Cell from DBZ). A pair of scientists are trying to track down the creatures origin while trying to survive the growing infestation…

For a early monster monster movie, it ain’t bad for it’s time. The acting is solid if not a bit too serious for a movie like this. The music ranges from solid to mildly corny. There are some decently creepy environments and atmosphere. What I will always remember about this movie are the “turtles”. They look goofy and are ludicrously slow; I laughed my ass every time they’d get someone because you know there would be no way in hell these things would kill anyone in real life. But, what I remember most, and I’m not exaggerating here, I’m pretty sure they bleed and gush raw Campell’s Chicken Noodle soup. Originally, if I’m correct this movie was in black and white where they may have been able to get away with it, but color it’s hilarious. In the end it’s not a bad old sci fi horror movie that cn worth some laughs. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pokemon Stadium

pokemon stadium With Detective Pikachu killing it in theaters, I wanted to look back at a classic for 90’s kids.  Pokemon Stadium was a simple concept done right- choose from the classic first generation 150 Pokemon and battle in epic tournaments against the AI or your friends, challenge the classic Indigo League gym leaders, or play some pretty fun mini games.

Much like the classic Pokemon games on Gameboy ( Red, Blue, Yellow, etc.) battling is standard turned based combat. I admit, knowing Pokemon in advance is a huge advantage. Types are everything and discovering what type beats your opponent  grants you a near instant K.O. While the combat is certainly fun, type-matching and spam moves rule. There are a awesome assortment of modes to choose from; my favorite was a combination of the gym leader tower and the mini games. The graphics are fairly solid for the time but the sound effects are pretty corny, even for twenty years ago. While I don’t have much to say, if you have a friend and an N64, Pokemon Stadium is an amazing time. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Happy Alien day 2019

alien day 2019  Happy Alien day everyone and what a strange year it’s been for the Xenomorph, finding a new home with Disney ( a fact that still gets me to scratch my head now and then but laugh knowing the Queen is now a Disney princess). While we haven’t got any concrete news of a new movie, we have Fox helping to release some awesome fan films including Alien: Containment , Alien: Specimen , Alien: Night Shift , and Alien: Ore . This year is the 40th anniversary of the classic Alien , a icon of horror and science fiction that has nothing but my love and respect that proves in space, no one can hear you scream. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Happy Alien Day!

Eight Legged Freaks

eight legged freaks

When all is said and done, what makes a movie good is what we take away from it. I’m a man of a huge variety when it comes to cinema. Sometimes I want a deep psychological piece or a gripping action flick. Then there’s times I want a B movie about giant spiders…

Prosperity Arizona is a dying mining town. The only prosperous mine was shut down and now the town is struggling and they blame Chris for it, who inherited the mine and disappeared. He came back as it just so happens a barrel of toxic waste landed in a pond where it contaminated a bunch of crickets that were fed to a bunch of spiders being kept in a spider farm. They grow to enormous size and chaos ensues as they try to invade the town. Can the town survive the creepy, crawly horde?

Eight Legged Freaks is a fun and simple B movie that knows what it’s trying to be and does it well. The characters are surprisingly likable and the spider effects hold up pretty damn well after 15+ years. The movie has some decent laughs but isn’t outright hilarious. Despite the pg-13 rating, there are some decent kills and a kid or spider-phobe will get creeped out. In the end, it’s a fun time worth watching at least once. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mass Effect

mass effect

There’s a rare time when almost all of our passions collide into a single artwork. For me it was a great story, interesting characters, cool sci-fi lore, and some fun gameplay. For me, that equals the Mass Effect trilogy.

Mass Effect takes place in the distant future where mankind has joined the rest of the galaxy because of Mass Effect tech, allowing humanity to travel to the far corners of the cosmos. We play as Shepherd, a soldier in the Alliance military climbing through the ranks. On a mission that should have been pretty cut and dry, he discovers betrayal and an unfolding threat to the universe from an ancient Enemy: the Reapers. Being a Specter and given almost endless authority, he’s tasked with hunting down the rogue Specter Saren, and the Reaper’s probe, Sovereign. Along the way Shepherd joins forces with some strange and fascinating characters from other worlds to stop a seemingly unstoppable threat…

This may have been one of the hardest reviews I’ve had to do. There is A LOT to the Mass Effect’s overall story: grudges between species that make you think, political intrigue and corruption, a subtext of humanity having to prove itself amongst several more developed races and how we can only defeat the unstoppable together. Shepherd, depending on which way you swing on the Paragon or Renegade scale, can be either a great good guy or awesome dick- either way there is a lot of replay-ability. Shepherd can be customized a surprising amount of ways, combined with your teammates attributes, I haven’t been able to have such varied gameplay since Borderlands 2 . I fell in love with the characters, heroes and villains alike and found myself in love with the world of Mass Effect; the mission on Vermire tore my heart out at first. The only issue I have is that you do feel a bit OP with the crazy amount of shit you can do and gun-play feels off at times. In the end, I regard Mass Effect as a near flawless classic with probably my favorite video game story of all time, with only the 2nd game tying there and I can’t recommend it enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sega Forever Phantasy Star 4

To the surprise of basically nobody on earth PhantasyStar 2 of Sega Forever has become the Phantasy Star Collection, Containing 2,3 and 4 of the series tho 1 as always is missing. As longtime followers know I am a huge fan of Phantasy Star 4, so while being able to play it on a cell phone is kind of cool it isn’t a huge deal to me as I have it on my PS4. The real question is how does it work?

Well the sound is damn near identical to its original release, possibly a bit better and graphically it looks good and honestly, the controls are mostly fine. A  little bit of trouble with moving around and hitting the wrong direction but that easily can be my fat fingers as opposed to anything else. The real issue is unless you have no other choice there is no reason to play it here, you can get it on all 3 major home consoles. There they have better graphics, sound more options, better controls, and a bigger screen. If you have no options this is a perfectly fine place to play it, but honestly, it’s not the preferred option. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.