PixlBit

I had a half day of gaming today because of family, but that's ok. There's still a bunch of stuff to mention as I continue to churn through my quick-play playlist.  

First off, I bought The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection for PS3 with some money off for trade-ins at my favorite retro store, Jay St. Video Games. After listening to Retronauts this week talk about the series. I had to get it. Now I want a 3D TV to take advantage of the 3D in Shadow of the Colossus. 

Then I swapped out my PS3 for my Wii at Mark's place because there are more short games on my list on Virtual Console, Wii and Game Cube I have to play first. 

First though, I checked the sales on Xbox 360, almost bought Dragon Age II for $5, and then switched to Wii for two games mentioned in the last few Retro Game of the Week articles by The Last Ninja. First up was Spinmaster (spelled as two words on VC), originally on the Neo Geo and downloadble on Wii Virtual Console for $9. I downloaded it and then had some trouble getting it to display full screen. It seems there's a little problem with getting virtual console games to work right on HD TVs. Well, with the help of Google, I fixed the problem. I had to do something like what you'd do for a cheat code in a game: go to a menu, and press several buttons together at the same time. Presto! Problem fixed. 

Spinmaster is super cool. The graphics are very much like Metal Slug and the gameplay isn't far off either. This is a side-scrolling action platformer. You're a kid with powers and you can pick up different ones along the way. You have a super move that is a sight to see on screen -  just glorious color and screen filling action every time. There's great bosses too. I loved this game right to the choices of multiple endings in the penultimate screen. I love how this has the ability to save after you die your last death so you can go back to where you left off. This was originally an arcade game, and I imagine you could bring your memory card to the arcade to pick up where you left off last time. I wish more arcade games had that. I don't remember even one that came to North America. 

Then I bought Bonk's Adventure for $6. This was on the TurboGrafx-16 originally and Bonk was sort of its mascot. This is a platformer where you jump and bang your head into things. Eat meat and you power up to breathe fire and head-bang even harder. I like too that you can use your teeth to climb walls. Bonk is like a toddler and bites and bonks his way around. Cute and visceral. I really liked this game, but I got stuck in a secret area and couldn't get out. Darn it! Maybe next time. 

Then I went back to Xbox 360 and played some Capcom's Arcade Cabinet. This is a downloadable application where you can buy an assortment of Capcom arcade games. I played through what I had a few times each in Score Attack Mode and then bought a new one. First was 1942 and 1943. For some reason, during the week, the music of these games popped into my head and I couldn't get them out, not that I really wanted to. These are vertically scrolling shooters. You're a WWII American pilot fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theater (kinda weird that, since they are Japanese made games). I love, love, love these games in the arcades, but on console they're not as good. There's just not as much control of your movements with the Xbox controller. Still fun though. I also played a similar, but more complex, game in Legendary Wings and a side-scrolling bullet-hell shooter Hyper Dyne Side Arms. Next was several action games: Trojan, Avengers and Black Tiger. These are all fine, but coin munchers tend to play unfairly. Then I bought a new game: Savage Bees. This is a game like Xevious (vertically scrolling shooter) but with some bug themes. I had to get it since it reminded me of Twinbee. All these got me thinking about how games have changed and how we now expect much easier gameplay, at least in the opening levels of a game. These are all fairly brutal and don't let you get too far unless you play on casual mode or  with infinite continues. I refused to do that though because all the achievements and leaderboards in Capcom's Arcade Cabinet are tied to playing in Score Attack mode, which is fairly strict in it's rules, like the original arcade cabinets. 

I'd had enough of arcade games, so I popped in MechAssault 2 again from last week. I died in the level I was on trying to mess around with the controls and then the game wouldn't let me get back to the menu screen. This happened several times, and I got tired of exiting the game and restarting. Maybe this would work better on the original Xbox console, so I'm going to save it until I get that set up. I'll do that once I exhaust a few more of the Wii games I have on my list. 

Finally, before I had to leave for family, I played some Secret of Monkey Island 1 on Xbox Live Arcade. I started over from the beginning and tried to play it without being all OCD about it. That means, not clicking everything in sight, and talking through every single line of dialog. In a way, I was role-playing it a bit. I picked one quest to work on, the sword master one, and stuck to it. When I stopped, I was getting hooked on this game again. I'll see if I can finish it this time. 

I can't wait to get back to gaming tomorrow. I revamped my playlist once again, and will probably start with a few arcade game collections I have for the Wii. I also added Game Cube games because I realized today that the Wii is compatible with those games. Also, Mark got a hold of my Angry Birds Star Wars and doesn't seem to want to stop, so I'll have to get a second copy so we can both play it at the same time. I'll do that too tomorrow, once i get the nail out of my car's tire. Picked that up on my way home tonight. It was huge and made so much noise, I thought the front end was falling off. It's an easy fix, I just hope my tire isn't flat in the morning. Low is fine, but flat would mean putting on the donut and that's a little bit of a pain. 

Guten abend!