Retro News Roundup
Retro News Round-Up – December 2014
This month’s episode includes Smash Bros on a calculator, the return of Majora’s Mask, and a way to get your NES games in HD.
RetroHate
Jump Up
Jumping is a fundamental part of many video games, particularly platformers. In fact, the character widely considered (even if not technically correct) to be the “Father” of the modern platformer and helped bring about the rebirth of video games as a whole, was originally called Jumpman. Yet so many video games can’t seem to get the concept of “jumping” right, whether realistically or mechanically. So today I’m starting a potential series of articles highlighting when “Jump goes wrong” beginning with the very basics: jumping.
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The Retro Critic
The Adventures Of Cookie & Cream
Here’s an odd little game you might have missed on the PS2.
The Adventures Of Cookie & Cream, aka Kuri Kuri Mix, was a multiplayer action/puzzle game in which two bunnies, one called Cookie (or Chestnut in some versions), who has a flower pot on his head, and one called Cream, sporting a little umbrella hat, collaborate on beating various goofy yet conveniently designed worlds.
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Raising a Gamer
Kingdom Hearts Part 1
This time my daughter, Mae, and I tackle the largest game we have yet to face together. I want to include all of our reactions from start to finish, so I have decided to break this one into two parts. At the time of writing this piece we are about thirteen hours into Kingdom Hearts and I feel like we have only scratched the surface of all there is to see and collect. As anyone who knows me or who has been following this series may know, I have a short attention span. I love gaming with my daughter, but with our busy schedule, I find it hard to justify playing anything for an extended period unless it truly blows us away. Kingdom Hearts is an unusual game and I think that is part of what makes it so great. The decision to combine characters from the Final Fantasy series with Disney classics sounds like something that was dreamed up over a few too many late night bottles of sake, but was actually was considered by the top brass over at Square. They thought the only way to dethrone Mario as the king of 3D action platformers was with by teaming up with other well known IPs like Disney. After a chance run in with Disney execs in an elevator, Square pitched directly to the Mouse himself and thus Kingdom Hearts was born. Read More
My Two Gils
Retrogaming Credibility – For Dummies
Has this ever happened to you?
@Nintendo_Legend wait… Is it not?
— Eric M Hunter (@erichunter) November 14, 2014
While no one likes to admit these moments of weakness, it happens more often than you’d think. The retro-gaming community is a fun crowd, full of good times and touching stories. However, if you don’t know your stuff, you WILL get called out. They seem like nice people, but one typo in a Super Famicom exclusive jRPG quote and they will run you out of town. It’s a long journey to earning that crowd’s respect.
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PC Master
Let’s Build an N64-PC – Part 1
From time to time I get bored and decide I need a project to spice things up. So, I’ve decided to take the time to put a full PC inside an N64, and dedicate it entirely to emulation. So, let’s walk through what I plan to do.
1 More Countdown
Top 10 Favorite Frozen Levels
Hey 1 More Castle,
I regret to inform you that Andrew, Eric, and the rest of the bosses around here allowed me to return to blogging for the site. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.
So let’s talk about winter! I hate winter, which is why I’m moving down south. I hate the cold, I hate ice, and I especially hate the snow. It just snowed massively a few days ago and I’m already sick of it. It’s weird because I do like snow/ice levels in video games. In fact they’re some of my favorite levels of all time.
The Gaming Book Club
The Gaming Book Club – Masters of Doom by David Kushner
Books on gaming are discussed enough – especially as there are some pretty good ones out there. So here’s The Gaming Book Club, with this episode looking at the Masters of Doom by David Kushner.
GMZ
GMZ #2-5 – Yoshi Arrested, Political Plants vs. Zombies, and Ubisoft’s Secret
Yoshi Arrested, Accused of Cannibalism
By Ken Reporter
Early this morning, T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas, better known simply as Yoshi, was arrested by the Yoshi Island Police Departement. At a press conference held an hour later, police chief Snufit explained that Yoshi is wanted in connection with the hundreds of disappearances of various Yoshis dating back to the early 90s.
No one in the video game industry was exactly surprised by this. One person we spoke to under condition of anonymity had this to say: “I’va know about-a Yoshi’s, let’s-a say, “strange eating habits” for years. I’va always thought it’s-a weird. Mama mia, who eats-a their own friends and-a familia?!”
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Game Overkill
Game Overkill – Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (Personal Edition)
First thing’s first: Persona 4 did not make the cut. It just missed. But, seeing as it’s my series and I make the rules, I’m going to be writing about it anyway. I refuse to accept the fact that not enough of “you people” put it on your lists. “You people” are wrong. With that, here’s the first of many post you’ll be seeing from time to time, bonus Game Overkill content I’ll be labeling “Personal Edition”; games I believe everyone should play at least once that didn’t make the official list. I wanted to call it “The Great Games Idiots Forgot to List Edition,” but apparently that’s “insulting.” Babies.
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Queries
Queries: Ray Koefoed (Episode 3)
So here we are! Another Queries! This time I have one of my personal favorite internet people. Most of you probably don’t know, but for a long time, I wanted to make machinima for a career. Obviously, once I found out I had no talent for it, it didn’t work out. But when I was still in that beautiful wide eyed haze of believing I could meld my two greatest interests: video games and film, Ray Koefoed was one of the people I really looked up to. Ray was someone who could meld great, catchy music with some of the most quality Source machinima of the time. If I could tell my thirteen year old self that someday I would get to talk to Ray Koefoed, I probably wouldn’t be here, because thirteen year old me would have died of a heart attack.
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RetroHate
The Trouble with Toad
Welcome back retro ladies and old-school gents, I have finally “wised fwom my gwave” and am here to ‘dis on some of my favorite classic games. Today’s topic of hate is mushrooms or more specifically, mushroom people, aka Toads.
The Retro Critic
Charlie’s Angels
One does not simply review Charlie’s Angels on the PS2…
To quote The Borg: “reviewance is futile.”
(my old buddy Benny Borg is not very good at English, sorry) Read More
Raising a Gamer
Sesame Street Counting Cafe
Sesame Street just turned 45 last week and in that time, Elmo, Big Bird, and friends have spawned dozens of video games for about every console you can imagine. I grew up with Sesame Street and it’s important to me that my daughter, Mae, also have a love and appreciation for the show. She is getting a little older now so I thought it was time to introduce her to the franchise in video game form. Read More
My Two Gils
For the Hoard?
As I stand here, playing Diablo II, butchering harmless natives for gold and colored letters engraved on belts, lusting for their experience-filled blood, my attention is drawn to the nearby television. Restraining my previous thoughts of requesting a sandwich to my girlfriend, I violently threw the laptop out of the way focusing on this so called “newscaster”. As his voice pronounces these far too familiar words, my mind becomes blank. Angered by the turn of events, I feel the aggressiveness in me rise. Somehow, I know they’ll blame these deaths on video games and that just makes me want to punch them in the face.
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Wordy Fun with Jim Crawford, creator of Frog Fractions
A relatively short time ago within the galaxy I reside in, a person named Jim Crawford released a free-to-play browser game called Frog Fractions. We actually had a D-Ported video by Alex Weiss about it. When I completed the remarkable game/fractions aid for myself, I decided that I simply must interview its creator. So I did. Here is that interview.
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Game Overkill
Game Overkill – Super Mario Bros.
We all knew this day was coming, so I chose to get it out of the way early. As if Super Mario Bros. wasn’t going to make the cut. For a lot of gamers around my age, if it wasn’t the first game we’ve ever played, it was usually one of the first, if not the first, NES games we’ve ever played.
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N64 Connoisseur
N64 Review #15 – Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey
It is one of my favorite times of year. No, not pumpkin spice season. No, not extraordinarily premature Christmas decoration season. It’s hockey season! Hockey is my favorite sport. In fact, as I write this, I am also watching a Tampa Bay Lightning game. Go Bolts. All of this icy goodness got me to reminiscing about one of my old Nintendo 64 favorites, the great arcade hockey game and the first sports title on the N64, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey. Old favorite as it may be, I haven’t played it in many years and N64 sports games haven’t aged terribly well on the whole. Seems like it’s worth a look, isn’t it? Read More