This is your lucky day! I’ve got more game reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com. Please click on the links and read as many as you can and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
A majority of this batch of GamerDad reviews I’ve recently written have to do with Japanese myths and legends and other related themes, so hence the title. Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
Happy New Year! Around this time of year, I like to make a list of games that are releasing in the coming year that I’m looking forward to. Of course, this isn’t a full complete list, as there will assuredly be titles announced throughout the year that I may get as well. But anyway, here’s what I know now, for the most part, so let’s take a look at what games I’m looking forward to in 2024!
Welcome to the next Headlines edition of Nerds Without Pants! Julian and Justin are both in holding patterns waiting on bigger games, so this episode has us checking out some different stuff in the meantime, as well as some eclectic news stories that we hope you’ll enjoy. All that, and your emails!
A few months ago, we got a couple of downloadable only collections of Namco NES and Famicom games. I even wrote about them, which you can read here. But did you know that in Japan, they got a physical copy of the game on the Switch, and that it had different games and a new interface? I actually imported this game because it was only 30 bucks, which isn’t bad for an import title. So let’s take a look at this collection and what makes it different from the ones we got in the US!
Even in the early 80s I was a video game fan, and I consumed the very limited media at the time for video games where I could. Other than the Pac-Man cartoon, one of the earliest cartoon shows related to video games that I remembered was Saturday Supercade, which aired on CBS from 1983-1984.
One of the releases today on the eShop and the PS Store was the Arcade Archives version of Kangaroo, made by Sunsoft. Kangaroo was originally published in the US by Atari, which had begun supplementing it's own output with licensed games from Japan after the success of Space Invaders and Pac-Man.
Namco has just opened up a new wing in their museum, with two volumes of archives including a bunch of 8-bit NES and Famicom games! These two new downloadable collections contain almost a dozen games each. I’ll be your tour guide as we go through the games on these collections. So let’s go!
My earliest years in gaming was a magical time. Every new game I discovered pioneered a fresh mechanic I hadn’t seen before. I'll never forget the moment when my brother's best friend came over with his NES games to show off Blaster Master. I marveled as the story elements unfolded while melancholic music played in the attract mode. Pressing the start button then transitioned me to the opening shot of an armored vehicle speeding off while the triumphant music swelled to a crescendo as I journeyed into the unknown. Never had I witnessed anything like that at the time. While everything I just described is nothing spectacular these days, Blaster Master still has a few gameplay elements that still hold up quite nicely.
The arcades were my first gaming experiences, and I've alwasy had a soft spot for the arcade classics. Thanks to Atari, Namco, and the Arcade Archives series, my Nintendo Switch looks like the arcade of my fever dreams. But I've always enjoyed the look and feel of arcade cabinets. When I was a kid in Arizona, the local Ak-Chin commissary always had arcade cabinets like Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, and Ms. Pac-Man, plus arcades were at grocery stores, movie theaters, travel plazas, and of course, shopping malls.
As much as I like Nintendo, they have made quite a few mistakes as a game company. Some are big, like the Virtual Boy and using cartridges on the N64. And some are not quite so big. One of those ‘not quite so big’ mistakes I feel is how they released the NES Classic Edition last year. For those who don’t know, the NES Classic Edition was a smaller console that looked like the 8-bit NES and had 30 games on it. But Nintendo didn’t make enough and it’s very hard to find. Even I don’t have one! I know Nintendo recently said they would make more and release them next summer, but we’ll just have to see about that. So when I saw where I could order the Famicom Classic Edition online for nearly retail price, I decided to import that instead. The Famicom was the Japanese version of the NES. Their Classic Edition has most of the same games as the NES one, but with a few changes here and there. So in this blog, I’m going go over the Famicom Classic console, the games on it, and at the end I’ll share some good news related to this topic!
I've often come to think about the whole games as movies. And with Need For Speed coming to theaters eventually I have wondered...Why hasn't it worked? It's a bit perplexing. You have these fantasy realms in which to explore and try to bring to film. But Hollywood has had a hard time bringing games to the big screen. Yes there are critical successes. Wreck It Ralph while not a video game, was video game inspired. And it seems to be that way with most things. One highly fascinating video game documentary is King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Or going way back we can take a look at Disney's Tron...a computer animated, technological feat.
The Classic NES Series continues with more great old-school games. If you missed yesterday, be sure to check that out. I took it upon myself to draw 21 posters to some of the best NES games. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first bunch; please comment on these as well, as I would like to hear what you have to say. Please enjoy! You can check out more of my art at Deviantart here.
This week I picked up a bunch of Doctor Fate comics on the cheap after a friend said Doctor Fate was like DC's version of Marvel's Doctor Strange - a favorite comic character of mine. I found out later that Doctor Fate preceeded Doctor Strange by about twenty years (DF started in the 40's and DS in the 60's). Anyway, I noticed DC tends to not have as many ads in their comics as Marvel, most of them being ads for other DC comics - like the way indie comics do. But they do have video game ads here and there and I got six of them out of issues 32 to 41 of Doctor Fate all released from Sept 1991 to June 1992.
Last week was kind of a crazy week of news for video game fans of all walks of life. Naturally the PS4 announcement took up the lion’s share of the attention, and with good reason considering how long the current console generation has lasted. Obviously big and sad news hit a lot of people close to this website with the announcement that 1up would be closing, and some excellent writers getting laid off. With all of that commotion it’s easy to forgive if you didn’t realize that Kenji Eno died last week, as well. You can also be forgiven for asking who that is, because although Eno was a legendary game designer to a lot of people, he was also an enigma that hadn’t been in the gaming news for over a decade.
This week's Nintendo Download offers up a huge variety of titles across all three services.
Today, Sunsoft announced a sequel to their fan-favorite title, Blaster Master. Blaster Master: Overdrive is a WiiWare title that is planned for release this coming Monday, February 8 in North AmericaThe game will be available for 1000 Wii Points ($10).
This week's Nintendo Download includes two Virtual Console games, five DSiWare titles, and four WiiWare titles.
This week's recap features plenty of the normal stuff that you see here every week. A busy schedule prevented any truly unique features, but if you haven't already, be sure to check out our Holiday Buyer's Guide.
Sunsoft announced today, with the help of Gaijinworks, that the company has acquired the rights to the entire Nihon Telenet video game library.
