Tony Hawk's Bro Skater Too‏

I’m pretty sure people still remember the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, as it was such a big hit back in the day. I had an N64, so due to the size limitations of the N64 cartridge, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was gimped: songs were cut short,  it ran better with the ram expansion and required a memory card to save (neither of which I owned). Buying the two things isn’t expensive these days, but I found the PS1 version on eBay for $4 shipped. What a steal.

Going back to this game brings back mostly fond memories: It’s super arcadey skateboarding with crazy special tricks that even these pro skaters would have a tough time pulling off. I played Single Player to death, and what’s great is it’s easy to play a couple of minutes here and there, since each skateboarding run you do is 2 minutes. I love how I can fit in 10 minutes for this game, yet still make progress.

Graphics are still great in my opinion. The game doesn’t feel like it’s aged poorly because it still plays very smoothly, including the animations. It might be filled with jaggies, but it’s ignorable due to all other aspects of how the game runs.

You get a multitude of different levels, and all of them feel different. Out of all, my favorite is probably Venice Beach since it’s fairly big and has a good amount of everything, from ramps to roofs. School II is also great fun, but brought some annoyances, even to this day. For example, in School II you have a goal that requires you to Wall Ride over school bells. Seems simple, right? Nope, some of these bells are just annoyingly hard to Wall Ride.

Lastly, the tracklist is great. I think it’s one of my favourite and most memorable tracklists in a game. The N64 version however, only had 6 tracks, compared to the PS1’s 15. Seeing as I never played the PS1 version until now, this tracklist has only become better. I can’t believe I was in love with 6 tracks while PS1 owners had much more to love! Some of my favorite tracks are “Bring the Noise” , “Guerilla Radio” and a new favorite is “B-Boy Document” because it’s got Mos Def!

It was fun going back to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. If you’ve never played it, get ready for some simple, but great fun. There’s also an HD remake which features levels from the first and second games in the Tony Hawk series, but I heard it’s not that great. Stick to the OG Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 3

The last 2 weeks saw me writing about two games I owned for the Sega Genesis: NFL Football '94 and Virtual Bart. Both of these were horrid excuses for games, since either I didn't understand what I was doing or the controls were poor. Luckily enough, my childhood was spared with a third game: X-Men 2: Clone Wars.

This game was a great sidescroller. Both my brother and I ended up spending the most time with X-Men 2 out of the 3 games because we loved X-Men. Wolverine and Nightcrawler were my favorites.

Story-wise, I had no clue what was happening. Apparently these dudes called the Phalanx are out to get everyone on Earth. Don’t blame me for not caring, the story was presented as text on a screen, and I was a child. Let’s kill them already!

My brother and I had the game down pat for the most part. Through trial and error, we realized that each character was different. With time, we found that switching up the characters would make the game easier, because some were better than others for specific levels or bosses. For the most part, I ended up with Wolverine, but Cyclops was great as well, and Beast helped out a lot during boss battles.

The great part about the game is that Magneto ends up joining you, so you get to play as him. It was pretty cool for the time, but I never got the hang of playing as him, nor did I see any advantage in using him.

The game was fairly tough in my opinion. To this day, I have not beaten it. As a child, I was convinced that with time and patience, I would get through the most of it. Unlike Virtual Bart, the game was not frustratingly difficult because the controls were very tight. Each playthrough would see me getting slightly better, as I was just learning from experience.

As mentioned before, my brother and I also learned from trial and error. I guess that wouldn’t fly nowadays, but seeing as this was the best game we owned, we didn’t care about learning from the game this way. It allowed us to share more time together, as well as think of new ways to get past the tricky parts.

Sometimes we would just give up and put the game on hold because parts of the game were too hard to figure out, especially when you’re thrown into a boss fight. I knew there were cheat codes, and I was very tempted to skip a level or two, but oddly enough, the game would not accept the cheat codes. Even to this day, the cheat codes don't work on my hard copy and console, and I have no clue why.

Overall, X-Men 2: Clone Wars is a game I’ve always been fond of. It made playing my Sega Genesis worth it, despite lacking many of its must-own games (i.e. any of the Sonics, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Destiny). If you’ve never played it, definitely give it a chance.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 2‏

Asmentioned last week, as a kid I owned a Sega Genesis, but only had 3 games. Of course I rented a few, but the ones I owned made great memories. Today, in this 3-part post, I'll talk about Virtual Bart.

By definition, "great" doesn't necessarily mean good. By that I mean Virtual Bart was great in being horrible at game mechanics. As a kid, you’d just buy your games off cover art, and everyone was a fan of The Simpsons, so I figured, why not? And boy was I greatly disappointed.

The game presents itself as a set of minigames, 6 of them if I recall. Each is horrible in its own right, so I commend the developer in finding different ways of making bad minigames. The game starts off with Bart going to the school’s Science Fair and getting trapped in some spinning wheel contraption, which ends up being a random stage selection. The wheel spins randomly and chooses a minigame for you. Not having the choice already makes me angry.

Jurassic Bart

This was probably the best minigame out of the 6. Bart turns into some kinda dinosaur and your job is to get him out of the level safely. I never beat this one, but I had more fun with it than the other 5. The jump mechanics are poor and Dino Bart ends up sliding around the level. I mostly ended up dying from attacks from other dinosaurs. For some reason Lisa and Maggie are seen, in human form, throwing crap at you. I never understood why, but I hated them even more.

SpiderPig

In this minigame, Bart is now a pig. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the dinosaur level, with a different setting. I think it’s even worse, because pigs aren’t as cool as dinosaurs.

Baby on Board

Bart’s a baby. He jumps even more poorly than in the dinosaur level. You swing on branches and then end up at a carnival. Basically, you have to time and land every jump perfectly. This was easily the most tedious of the 6, and I hated getting stuck with this one. 

Tomacco

Bart basically has a sack of tomatoes, and he’s throwing them at school kids. You select where you throw and aim for someone. The point of the game is to hit everyone except Principal Skinner and maybe a few of the teachers (my memory here is hazy). The problem here is you can’t really tell if your aim will be on target because you can’t choose your distance accurately. Bart is standing, hidden behind a mailbox, and as such, he doesn’t move. This is fine, but what’s horrible is that you can’t determine the angle you throw at, only the distance (the yellow line you see in the pavement in the above image scrolls up and down to determine distance, but not angle).

Hell’s Satans

I guess this is a Road Rash clone. Bart drives a motorcycle and picks up fuel while defending himself from Jimbo and Kearney, as well as buses. I never finished the level because I found the controls too annoying.

Mount Splashmore

Bart goes on a deadly waterslide and you have to avoid people and traps. Again, the controls weren’t tight and the waterslide splits into different paths. Take the wrong path and you’ll either end up dead or the time will run out.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I was disappointed with this game as a kid, which doesn’t say much because most kids wouldn’t fault the mechanics, but rather assume they’re not adept enough to beat the game. I knew the truth because I’ve played through that irksome Battletoads level and lived. Virtual Bart was and still is a giant piece of garbage.

All was okay though, since the 3^rd and last game I owned was the saving grace for my time with the Sega Genesis. 

Till next week.

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Zombocalypse Part II

If you've read my blogs before it shouldn't surprise you that I'm a big fan of zombie games, movies and pretty much anything else zombies. So it shouldn't surprise you this week that I'm talking about another zombie game: Dead Nation. Now for those who don't know, Dead Nation is a top down duel-stick shooter for the Playstation 3 and 4. It was also part of the "Welcome Back" pack that Sony put out after the network outage that knocked the PSN down for almost a month—compromising 77 million accounts—which is how I and a lot of other players found themselves in possession of this game (along with Little Big Planet).

All that aside this game is awesome and a ton of fun when played cooperatively. You play the game as either Scarlette or Jake, or both if you're in the co-op mode. You start out by leaving your shelter in search of food and supplies. The zombie apocalypse is well underway at this point and you two are immune to the viral infection which has claimed and zombified the majority of the world's population. After finding a radio and communicating with a scientist from some shadowy corporation (umbrella corp knock off) you learn that the scientist can develop a cure using your DNA and a tissue sample from patient zero, a man called Douglas Bane (fun fact the word "bane" means destroyer or murderer. Get it? Cause he's patient zero; it's symbolism people), and this is all set up so that they can use all your favourite zombie movie locals and tropes without them seemingly thrown in for no reason and it is glorious.

The game is pretty simple but still a fun top down shooter. You use the analogs to aim and move and the only way to describe it is that it feels good. The controls are solid: they never feel inaccurate or sloppy, unless you're freaking out or panicking that is...But in those occasions, in a real crisis, you would be panicking so it really adds a layer of depth to the game and makes it more enjoyable. Now as I said before the game supports co-op and I honestly wouldn't recommend playing it any other way. The game is pretty tough at points and the co-op helps. And who doesn't like playing with a friend or random stranger over the Internet?

The real meat of the game comes from the weapons and zombies and there's a wide variety of both; some you'd expect and some that are pretty new and inventive. When it comes to the zombies you have your average run of the mill fodder zombies and a slew of "special" infected zombies that were white or blue collar workers turned while on the job, whose uniform now grant them special abilities and effects. Then there's the evolved class—people changed into badass monstrosities by the virus—which are called Bombies, Leapers and Cutters, all of which are pretty self explanatory and tough as balls to take down. The weapons are probably the best part of the game. You start off with a limited number but as you progress through the stages you unlock more and more guns along with flares, grenades, molotovs and mines, each with have their own upgrade paths. And you'll need them all to help deal with the hordes upon hordes of undead the game throws at you.

This game took me completely by surprise. I got it on a whim and it blew me away. I was not expecting the amount of time and effort I would pump into this game and it is definitely an underrated title on the PSN store. If you're looking for a game with a good story, solid gameplay and tons of replay value, look no further.

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TBT - Asphalt Athlete

I'm a pretty huge sports fan. I watch Sports Centre nearly every day. And I'm always up for a pick-up game of whatever. Soccer, Hockey, Football, Volleyball, Baseball...Ultimate frisbee...you name it, I'll play it!

There is a hyper-realistic video game version of nearly every sport you can think of (I'm still waiting for the day that Hurlinggets the video game treatment though). They're all fine and dandy, but nothing really beats the "street" versions of these games. FIFA, NBA and NFL Street are some of the best sports games made from an entertainment standpoint.

On The Street

The Street series was an EA franchise. And since they had all the rights to the players of a respective league / sport, all the games actually used real players. Some of the games even had you creating your own team by mixing players from all over. It was sort of like a mini manager mode: you were always on the hunt for better players to add to your roster.

The main draw to these games was how they moved away from the realism and created a more arcade experience. Players have super moves, run off walls and do flips, set the ball on fire, blow up nets, etc. It's crazy! Personally I played a lot of FIFA and NBA street. I never really touched NFL, but I know Sean used to own it on PS2 and loved it.

Since these were "pick-up games", they were also always played with less people than a normal sport would have (lots of 3 on 3's). Smaller teams actually changed the dynamic of the sport quite a bit...you know, on top of setting stuff on fire.

Foul Play

The last game that was released in the series was a reboot of FIFA Street, which was only a couple of years ago. I would hardly count this though because they drastically removed a lot of the crazy-ness, opting for a more authentic feel rather than a street-sport game, and focusing more on tricks you could practice but never perform in a real game.

The last realrelease was FIFA Street 3, which was 6 years ago on the PS3/360—NFL and NBA were released as well on PS3/360, but dropped the street name from the game and changed focus a bit, much like the FIFA reboot. Taking this into consideration, maybe the series is dead. But I for one hope it isn't, and would love to see a new release on the PS4/XBOne. 

I feel that there truly is a market for these Street-style games: sports games are some of the most popular in the industry, and the best part about these games was that even people who typically don't play sports games had fun with them (Sean is a perfect example). Bring back the arcade experience, I don't care if it's "authentic". Just make it over the top... Are you listening EABitch?

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