1993

The sun has finally made it into the air and we start to see the full force of the SNES. The GEN continues to be the system I bought to mainly play Sonic games. Meanwhile the sun is setting for the hard working NES. While the Game Boy continues to meander around. Oh of course the Game gear is already on fire and it hasn’t even been out that long. This is the state of the hobby during this time from my point of view.

My original plan was to split this year into two. But the more I think about it would be better to see the full picture at once instead of splitting it into two. Or does that make it way too long of a post? Questions still remain and if you have any suggestions let me know. Overall this year shows that having a healthy third party lineup can really help make a so-so release year into a great one. Both sides of the console war only had spin offs or remakes to bolster their releases. Nintendo at least had Star Fox to show off how badly the SNES can render 3D graphics. EDIT: I should have did another pass on this blog post before now. It had quite a few errors I didn't notice till I posted it. They are fixed now.

NES Top Loader

Kids like to break stuff. I wasn’t like that but when my Mom decided to take my NES over to school to use the variety of learning games as a new way to teach some basic skills to a 2nd grade class. It ended up broken a few weeks later. On the plus side I got the NES Top Loader as a replacement. This update brings a few advantages compared to the original NES. With the obvious fact that it can load games from the top. Loading games from the top of a console will be a fact that will continue for many years till the PS2 goes back to loading games from the side. It also has the dogbone controller which feels better in my hand compared to the square controller.

This is a part of my small collection of recent buys of old games. I didn’t know anything about it other than Enix made it so I thought it could be interesting. The first thing this game does is make the player choose the type of hero they want from a selection of 8. Depending on who you choose the kind of gear and magic you have access to will be different. The main goal as one one of the great heroes is to collect the runes and become the ruler of the world. This seems like it could change the tone of the story depending on if the player decides to work with the rest of the heroes or destroy them. If I had the time it might be a fun playthrough but the game itself is just the run of the mill turn based RPG.

Aka Super Battleship even on the Genesis. Yes this is a recreation of the board game. It does a good job of that but thankfully that isn’t the entire game. The other side is a tactical turn based mode. It looks like it has 8 different missions that give the player a assortment of ships to deal with an enemy fleet. The main issue with this game type is the fact it goes into real time combat when facing another ship. This makes the battle feel like they are up to chance if your ship will sink before the enemy. Maybe better use of different ammo types would have let me get a advantage but the cpu didn’t give me a chance to try.

So this is a weird way to make a Battletoads 2. Did the developers of Double Dragon just give up at this point? I ended up enjoying this a lot more than the grueling first game. It is much more of a beat em up although it still has other elements from Battletoads like the turbo tunnel. The fact that it mainly focuses on beat em up sections makes it a much fairer game to play through. Sure I still haven’t seen the ending but I’ve gotten much closer to it.

This version is a port of the arcade game. I thought it was a beat em up but turns out I was wrong. It may look like one but thanks to the invincibility frames after throwing one punch it is more accurate to call it a side scrolling shooter. Even when I was on foot it was a much better idea to use my ranged attack since going in just left me half dead thanks to counter attacks. Plus right after the first stage it turns into a game like Gradius for a bit. Unfortunately it keeps the quarter crunching mentality of the arcade game thus turning it into annoying game to beat with just 5 credits.

Spot has been transformed into Cool Spot. His constant goal is to gain even more coolness by picking up 7UP icons. With enough cool points he can rescue all of his friends at the end of each level. CS can shoot fizz to destroy any enemies in his way to the end of the level. The devs must have had issues with players getting lost since arrows constantly point in the direction of the caged Spot. This is another game that I got recently so it doesn’t hold much nostalgia value for me. It is a solid platformer at least.

Known as Assault Suit Vaiken in Japan Cybernator is a sequel to Assault Suit Leynos aka Target Earth. Like the previous game you play as a pilot of a heavy mech who must defeat the Axis Federation. This game starts out with a bang with a cruiser ramming into the side of a space colony to infiltrate it. The main addition to this game is the shield which is needed to block shots. If you even slightly want to get close to the end of this game good use of it will lead to victory. The mech itself feels really slow but powerful. It even has good maneuverability with the addition of booster jets and a dash. I also like how the tone of the game changes depending on if you succeed at stopping the enemy from enacting their devious plans.

At this point most kids had already left the Nes behind but not me. Which is why I ended up with a copy. Turns out this seems to be a rare cart if ebay is to be believed. The game itself is more Ducktales. Now with added abilities that can be used to earn more treasure. Basically Capcom added in extra tough blocks that can’t be pushed or pulled without a gadget from Gyro. Like the last game you can repeat levels to scour them for all the hidden treasures. If you get them all a hidden final level is accessed after seeing the normal ending.

Ecco The Dolphin is an odd game for someone to make during this time. You don’t have to go far to see that since the player plays as a Dolphin who must then rescue all of his friends from an alien invasion. This version of it on Game Gear seems to be about the same as the rest. I never got too far into it other than rescuing the baby killer whale in the first real level. Swimming through underwater mazes the entire time just wasn’t something that felt fun to me.

Another fighting game that I can’t play in its full potential thanks to me not owning a 6 button controller. Sure I can switch between punches and kicks with the start button but that isn’t going to help me succeed when facing the CPU. I can see they put a lot of time into these sprites since they are large and the entire cast is full of unique characters. But I don’t know why they made every character have charge moves or the fact that it limits how many standard special moves I could do before waiting for the Yin/Yang symbol to recharge. If I had more time to get used to this moveset I might have better understood what this game was aiming to do.

Like the last game Jungle Strike is about a ace pilot who must take down another madman. Unlike the last game they spent a lot of time setting up the plot with a nuclear blast. The cut scenes were improved from the last game as well. Everything else is the same except now the majority of the action happens in a jungle instead of a desert.

Welcome to Jurassic Park the video game. You remember when Grant went around shooting rockets from the movie right? Cause that happens a lot throughout this adventure. The outside sections have a top down Zelda like view. The more impressive moment was once I went inside for the first time. It turns into a FPS for a while till the player succeeds at finishing all the objectives in the building. In the past I was all whoa this is awesome. Yet these days I just notice how bad the frame rate is.

Whew my hands are tired after playing through this game. Wiggling the dpad back and forth rapidly to win grapple matches is just not easy. It isn’t as bad as the first one but it still has some RNG whether I would be able to win every match. They did exactly what I wanted from the first game. Having a unique opponent every level. To bad they aren’t playable but 3 monsters from the original cast have come back to defend earth from an alien monster invasion. Instead of one battle after another the developers added in some small beat em up sections between fights. This gives the player a break and the ability to gain a few power ups before facing each boss. But this game is still a wrestling game in disguise like the last one. Other than the final boss that happens to be Jabba the hutt’s spiky twin brother. Which requires the player to dodge a instant kill attack and punch him over 100 times.

The one thing that stuck in my mind from this game is the intro that quickly teaches the player how to draw Kirby. After I saw that Kirby has been my go to character when I feel like doodling. Which is thanks to how simple he is to draw. As for the game this is the one that introduced Kirby’s unique copy ability. Yet they overstretched what the NES could do. Plenty of slowdown moments await all who decide to check out this notable Kirby release. Even with that big flaw I still consider this to be my second favorite Kirby game. Adding in required collectibles in almost every Kirby game after this one wasn’t a good way to make me enjoy it more.

90’s Zelda apparently means I’ll 100% it because this game also had a file with all the heart pieces. Apparently after playing A Link To The Past I just wanted more Zelda. This is the game that melded the viewpoint from Zelda II with the top down view of the rest. Thanks to the addition of the roc’s feather Link can jump thus making sidescrolling platforming sections possible. Plus in general Nintendo made some quality of life improvements like playing a tone so the player knows a key is hidden in a room. Overall it is just a good game that gave me plenty of reasons to keep playing it.

The NES version has some odd button choices thanks to limited buttons. I had to look this up since I didn’t think someone would put the start button as a way to talk to people. I do think this game does a good job of teaching whoever is playing about a bunch of important landmarks all over the world. If only it was actually fun to play it might have had more of an impact on me and other players. With the gameplay loop consisting of going to a new city take out the 3 koopa troopas and then returning the stolen items it can be rather boring. Although I must have seen something I liked with this game in the past since I remember beating the final boss.

Between Mega Man X and the remake I’ve played through it so many times. Something about the X series clicked with me compared to Mega Man. They are both similar games with the biggest addition is X’s ability to wall jump. X still copies abilities of bosses but now Sigma is the big bad instead of Willy. I do really enjoy the music of this series with the upbeat tunes and the rapid fire boss theme. This is also where I start to like collectibles since they aided me in my quest to beat the game. Between the awesome armor and energy tanks I always collect everything before taking on the final levels.

So close yet so far away from making a well rounded learning game. Mickey’s Safari In Letterland managed to be a solid platformer. To bad it isn’t even possible to get hurt. Each level is also criminally short so I doubt anyone that already knows their ABC’s will get anything out of this game. As a way to learn the alphabet it does a good job at it along with trying to teach a few basic 3 letter words if the player collects the 3 diamonds in each level. Learning games in general on the NES seem to have a high chance of including voice over. I’m sure that is thanks to how well a voice can better convey something to a kid.

Welcome to the gritty future of outrun. By gritty future I mostly mean someone has strapped a jet cockpit/engine onto a Ferrari and decided to boost his way throughout the world. Some of the night time scenes do fit the futuristic setting they were going for but that is countered by driving by normal looking houses later in the game. The car handling feels just as good as the rest of the series. While the frame rate remains steady even if it can’t quite give the impression of driving 700MPH like the meter tells me I’m going whenever the boost kicks in. As for the boost it was mostly pointless thanks to it making me run off the track whenever I left it on during a curve.

Here we go again. Another platformer starring a cartoon character. Pink and all of the enemies are way to large. I ended up accidentally running into a bunch of enemies. Other than a bad platformer it also has the player collect coins to use at tolls to create stairs or some type of helpful object. Since the plot is about Pink running through random movie back lots it let the developer craft a variety of level sets. For example a western stage or a robin hood level. They all give Pink a different ranged weapon to deal with enemies but it is all just aesthetics.

Most of my memories of this game is making it to the 2nd level and then proceeding to get a game over. The idea of having access to a robo cycle/ship at all times is pretty cool. Till it becomes not able to lock onto the boss's weak point after the first level. Then it just becomes a extra life bar to tank a few hits since surviving to the end of one can be tough. As for how each level is set up. They require the player to blow up a certain amount of objectives then it switches over to a giant robot boss. This game also has some early examples of polygonal models that introduce each mission.

Stimpy has made a console that prints money if the player does well. Ren decides to play it and it actually works. I assume each level in this game is based on a different episode of the cartoon. The first level had me controlling Stimpy as he prodded Ren across the level with different items. Since it is spaced themed a few seconds into the game it switches to a side scrolling shooter for a few moments. The next few levels have Ren on his on own. He doesn’t have a ranged attack until picking up some ammo. Like the show every moment of this game is completely random. Otherwise it is a okay platformer that starts to get kinda annoying 3 levels in.

Out of the many mascot characters of this era Rocket Knight Adventures stood out as being a awesome game. Quite a surprise that a game starting a rocket pack wielding possum would turn out so well. This is thanks to the always impressive Genesis sound chip and the ranged ability of Sparkster’s sword. Really it acts more like a gun than a sword. The rocket pack is also usable at any time and is required for certain sections. The wide variety of giant bosses to that go through 3 phases just to finish them off is cool as well. Even if the game gets bogged down a bit by instant death forced scrolling levels later on. At least the Gradius like shooter levels make up for that. As a side note the USA version must really want to belittle its audience by calling easy difficulty children.

My first introduction to the gritty cyberworld future we are fated to end up in. This would also be the first time playing a action RPG as well. In some aspects this is a open world game too. Since it begins with Jake waking up in a morgue not remembering what happened to him last night. After waking it was up to the player to roam around the city to figure out who he is and why someone wanted him dead. After scaring the mortician Jake meets a thug who conveniently gets shot and drops a pistol.

Which introduces Shadowrun’s combat which is a mixture of dice rolls and pointing a crosshair at a enemy. Afterwards he meets a dog that talks to him about the fact he is being watched by the dog god. If the magic menu didn’t tip you off that random bit of dialogue lets you know that this world is a bit strange. Unfortunately I didn’t remember how to get the tickets so I spent the rest of my time wandering around the world getting shot by random hitmen everywhere.

At the time this game was most likely very impressive as it is an accurate recreation of a Sonic game. These days I’m mostly just noticing odd design decisions. First every level is easily beatable in under 30 seconds. Sonic may be fast but that is just a bit too quick. Some of the level designs are odd as well like the one level where they bounce Sonic up into the air 5 times for no real reason. Finally the music just can’t compare to the quality of playing the console releases.

Sonic is cool so why not put him into a pinball table? Ehh that might have worked if they balanced the tables a bit more. Punishing the player by making them go all the way to the start of the table after a death is just a bit to much. As a pinball table it is fine but just like a normal table it feels really random. Maybe you thought Sonic would go in one direction then a surprise enemy pops up and sends him directly into acid.

If you thought N64 graphics haven't aged well then I don’t think you’ll be able to handle this game. The FX chip couldn’t even handle rendering the full image on my 32 inch tv screen. Not sure if that is the same on smaller tvs or not. Other noticeable workarounds for the limited 3D the SNES could handle would be when the game goes into FPS mode. I’m assuming it couldn’t handle that many polygons without causing the frame rate to tank so they had to find a workaround. Starfox still has its moments like flying through a battleship to blow up the core will never get old.

So I can’t really play SFII in the correct way. I don’t have a 6 button Genesis controller which limits me to using only punches. The game is still playable but I can’t pull off all the moves. At least I managed to get the version that added made the boss characters playable. As for the game it is the one that standardized what a fighting game would be. All of the attacks do a lot of damage compared to what I’m used to these days. That just makes every move or punch count a lot more than before. Of course this also was the game that introduced what might be one of the greatest character themes ever.

We may never be able to play this in Game Room but we can still play it on a SNES. My copy has seen better days so it ended up freezing in the 2nd level. I can always tell which games I played the most by how hard they are to get working again. Sunsetriders continues the trend of Konami making great sidescrolling shooters like Contra. This one is western themed and has one of the best death quotes from a boss. Not much variety here other than shooting a bunch of dudes and then getting paid for it.

4 Mario games in package. The only way this could get better is if I got the version with Super Mario World. Nintendo recreated all then NES games including the lost levels which never came out over here till this release. They updated the graphics and sound to match the power of a 16 bit console. Could this be considered to be the very first remaster? After all they did just repackage a bunch of old games to sell them again.

Well I don’t know any of the tricks to beat this game. So I got to the AT-ST boss and then proceeded to say this sucks and ran out of continues. Like the last game it is pretty awesome how much this is just 100% a video game that doesn’t try to adhere to what was in the movie. As an example Luke fights a giant wampa and then proceeds to fight his way through the AT - AT after blowing up a ton of enemies in a Snowspeeder. On that same level tow cabling a 2-D sprite really looks odd.

LJN can make a good game if all they needed to do was port it. But this is a case of a arcade game being better than the home version. They did fatefully recreate the arcade release. Yet without my SNES mouse I doubt I would have ever beaten this version. This game unfortunately has one of my most hated sections in a video game and that is the part where the player needs to escort a truck. In both versions they do not give any margin for error leading to a unfun mission objective that I get to see a few times till I somehow make it through. The rest of the game is a test of hand eye coordination but it feels a lot fairer and at least somewhat enjoyable.

Well we have already seen that TMNT Tournament Fighters may is one of the best fighters of all time. I don’t know if that carries over to the Genesis version though. As you might expect it has been simplified to two buttons. I’m not saying that makes it bad since it still has the usual set of special moves. If only the CPU wasn’t annoying good at predicting my every move I might have enjoyed my time with it more. Instead I used the power of spamming special movies like Raphael's drill spin attack to win. As for the story I’m left wondering why April is a ninja and the fact Krang made a bunch of evil clones of everyone.

Another in a line of mascot games that were rather mediocre. Our hero this time is a robot named TinHead who must got to different planets to rescue captured stars. The villain's plan this time was to capture all the stars in the universe and then spread them throughout the many planets. Since they don’t harm anyone it is a odd plan. The one thing this game does compared to the rest is that it allows Tinhead to shoot in 3 different directions. Which could have been unique if Contra didn’t already let me fire in every direction.

For once Tom is actually the playable character this time. Sega decided to make Tom control like a character from Prince Of Persia. As expected every level has Jerry running away from Tom and the goal is to catch in at the end of each level. Jerry spends the entire game dropping mine and bombs in the player's way. The end of every level has a boss although one of them can be skipped. The most I had to do was dodge a object that then let it return to the boss. The rest were just tests of endurance. Overall most of the game is rather easy although the last stage was made to kill any players that didn’t get all the heart upgrades.

Round 2 even more Tiny Toon Adventures. Still primary a platformer but with an amusement park theme. 3 of the 4 first levels are auto scrollers that have no checkpoints. Not a great start although they try to add some diversity by adding new mechanics like being able to flip the roller coaster car over to dodge attacks. The one unique mission is a mini game with bumper cars. Nothing to amazing about it other than being really easy to beat compared to the rest of the stages.

Mindscape apparently wanted to imply that the player was watching in a movie in the SNES version. They even added a crowd in the intro. Not having a instruction booklet to go with his game seems like a bad thing. I got to the end of the first patrol and I don’t know how to land. Flying around in space bowing up Kilrati was fun. The extensive introductions and being able to talk to the crew before each mission seems like something I would have liked if I played this back when I first bought my SNES. This was another of my I’d buy that for 3$ collection I mentioned in one of my previous blogs.

Whenever I first check out a fighting game I always assume the first character will be similar to Ryu. That fact is true most of the time and Hanzo is indeed a Ryu clone. None of the special moves are hard to pull off and the fighting feels solid. The game doesn’t seem very balanced but that doesn't mean I didn’t enjoy wiping the CPU out. Although I could say the same thing about the CPU throwing me to death as well. The additional death battle mode sets the arena on fire make the stakes go up. That mode also has a few other various deadly arenas depending on the opponent.

I really liked the X-men. All the way up to the PS1 I bought a lot of games based on them. Once again because of the cartoon. I didn’t actually buy that many comic books with my main one actually being about Sonic The Hedgehog. The game itself can be thrown into the pile of action platformers I own. Like most X-men games you have a selection of playable characters. They are mixed between a brawler type and the ranged type. No matter who you choose they have a limited power bar for special attacks. Going by the first mid boss Juggernaut the game does a bad job of showing the player if they are winning. Juggernaut has a life bar but it never goes down. Sure he is almost invincible with his helmet on but it seemed like I needed to hit him to trigger him randomly dying. Such a horrible introduction to what could have been mediocre game.

Here we are again another Yoshi related puzzle game. Yet he isn’t even the one controlling the puzzle in either game. Yoshi just stands around doing nothing as chef Mario does all the baking. Well you will see a few Yoshi shaped cookies at least. They are the wild card in this puzzle game. Which plays more like a standard match 3 game. Although you can only match a full line of cookies unless the ones dropping down from above match the cookies they end up touching. This continued till I got a game over by filling the entire board full of cookies.

Conclusion

Hm this was the year I was introduced to Fighting games. From this point I have always played these games in a similar way. In a VS format against a friend we end up playing through the entire roster. Sure we might be better with certain characters but I’ve never spent a bunch of time learning just one till I mastered all of his combos. Really playing through arcade mode is where I spend most of my time in a fighting game to this day. On the opposite end of the spectrum I noticed that beat em ups have started to show up more than before. This style of gameplay may not seem like something that would last till modern times but you might be surprised to find out it does.

If you’ve made it this far thanks for taking the time to look through another year of my retrospective. Tune in next time to see the end of the NES with the revenge of Zoda and the power of lock on technology. In case you missed 1992 click on the date to go to my previous blog post

1992

Another week goes by and I got around to playing through a year’s worth of releases from my collection. My thoughts on each game can be rather random. Most of what goes into one paragraph is just what I thought was worth mentioning right after I played it for about 30 minutes to a hour.

Anyway I need to get back on topic. Nintendo continues to add onto the SNES with a assortment of accessories like the SNES mouse. Most of these didn’t amount to much other than being a device I bought and then proceeded to almost never use it. In a line of poor moves that rarely ever pays off Sega started the train of portable devices that were much more advanced that what Nintendo had but end up doing poorly. As usual my selection of games is rather random but I can always count on having at least the most notable release that year mixed in with a bunch of licensed cartoon based video games.

Game Gear

Oh no my Game Gear appears to be broken. Looks like I’ll have to use the power of a emulator to play my collection of GG games. Sega really got me to buy into their device since at the time it really did seem like a Genesis on the go. If only I knew it took even more batteries and it drained them so fast I might have changed my mind. This device is not portable at all so almost all of my time with it was next to a power outlet. Along with that the list of games I own for it is rather small but I did get many hours of fun out of it.

Well this is a perfect recreation of clue. It is the board game with some additional scenes to spice up the accusations. The game I played ended weirdly. Scarlet accused herself of doing the killing with the wrench in the kitchen. So she succeeded in winning and losing at the same time. I haven’t really played clue very often so I don’t know if that is an occurrence that happens a lot.

Who cares about storylines the aliens are back and now they must be destroyed once again. That is really all you need to know to start a Contra game. Playing all these old games must be retuning my retro gaming skills since I’ve been getting much deeper into some of these hard games. I made it to the final level after continuing a few times. I was surprised to see that the Konami code doesn’t work in the US version. Oh well even if I don’t beat it often it is still a great side scrolling shooter.

My second Hal laboratory game. This one stars a daydreaming kid named Davey. Instead of paying attention in class he imagines being a knight, cowboy or a olympic hero. Each one has a few different mechanics. When Davy is in a western world he can fire guns and even switch from the top down perspective to a FPS shootout with a outlaw. To bad my single shot pistol wasn’t good enough to win. In the medieval time sections Davey uses a sword and it plays similar to Zelda. The rest of the sections play like that too it’s just that he uses a different weapon depending on what daydream he is in.

What better way to make a DD game than to make it like Mega Man. Although Darkwing doesn’t have the ability to get power ups from bosses he can get a few throughout each level. Which can then be used as an effective tool in beating bosses. Plus the game lets the player choose which stage they want to go to next as well. Difficulty wise this feels like an easier game than most. Maybe that is just thanks to the fact it doesn’t have disappearing blocks.

It wasn’t that long ago that I decided to play through all the Strike games. Which lead me to picking up the PS1 games. That was thanks to how much I enjoyed this one and the two follow up games. The entire plot is about being a badass helicopter pilot that must stop a terrorist plot by blowing up a bunch of targets. It has a isometric view that gives the game a unique look. These games were also known to be really hard as well. Plus it has a rocking musical intro on the Genesis although for most of the game you’ll be hearing helicopter sounds.

Another game based on a cartoon movie. If I remember correctly it was a weird and bad movie. The game turned out better than what it was based on. Yes it’s another platformer but Felix doesn’t jump on enemies he uses his magic tricks to defeat foes. Starting off with just a boxing glove if the player collects enough hearts he will turn into a tank. Because the developer thought it was good to have some variety every other level will either be air based or water based. Each one has its own unique transformations as well.

For some reason they also thought it was a good idea to have two different types of water levels. Above and below the water. A surprise space level even appears near the end of the game. Seeing the ending again made me wonder why Felix came all this way to save Kitty just to leave her tied up. At least it looked that way hah.

For a game that appears to be an introduction to the RPG genre it had the reverse effect on me. Plus it most likely made me ignore the Final Fantasy games till 7. The story isn’t that different than other Final Fantasy games since it is once again about collecting crystals to save the world. It has a more comedic tone too as noted by the intro where a wise old wizard tells a random knight to save the world. Yet afterwards the knight just wonders who that crazy old guy was.

Unlike the rest of the FF games it does not have random battles and instead you run into enemies on the overworld. Along with that you are limited to two members in your party at once which simplifies what options the player has during each battle. The one thing I did like was how each boss sprite gets battle damaged to let the player know how close they are to winning.

As a arcade game this was a favorite of mine in my local movie theater. As a home game its flaws are more apparent. It may look like you're battling giant monsters but this is really a wrestling game in disguise. The player can choose between 4 different giant monsters to take into battle. Once you're in the game it appears that randomness is the key to victory. Winning a grappling battle appears to be completely random. No matter how much I mashed my buttons or the dpad it almost never had an effect on if I would win the grapple war. After I beat the first 4 monsters the rest are just palette swaps too. If it only had more variety in the types of monsters it could have been a better home game.

The same thing I said about Super Mario Land can be said about Kirby’s Dream Land. They are both short and easy. Kirby leans even more into the direction of being super easy as his games tend to be. He doesn’t even have his trademark power yet. Although it has shades of it thanks to the one time use bomb and microphone items. The game even gives Kirby the power of infinite flight and the ability to shoot deadly air puffs which never gets brought up.

Plus this is the only game that shows that Kirby isn’t the only one of his race. Does that mean every time Kirby dies he gets replaced by another one of his clone brothers? DUN DUN DUN Looking at the box art it appears they didn’t know what color Kirby was yet since they colored him white instead of pink.

For someone that has only seen a few episodes of the Simpsons I seem to own quite a few of their games. .The best game to compare this one to is Lemmings since the goal is to get a bunch of slow moving rats to the goal. At least early on the only ability Krusty has is placing one block on the ground to allow the rats to go over 2 block high walls. He also has a throwing weapon to deal with any enemies in the level as well. I might have played this more if the music in the first zone wasn’t so annoying.

Very few games keep my interest long enough for me to 100% them. Yet the first thing I notice is that I have a file with all of the hearts and gear. That was thanks to a unoffical guide that I own since I doubt I would have been able to find them all without it. This is an absolute timeless game that I have no issues with coming back to whenever. Nintendo honed what they started with the first Zelda game to a absolute fine point.

Plenty of unique bosses along with tons of puzzles must be figured out for Link to once again acquire the triforce. Like the first game in this series it is played from a top down perspective. Link uses his sword to fend off enemies while his array of items allow him to solve puzzles and defeat his foes. After I played through the intro castle dungeon I loaded up my 100% save and beat Ganon again. It was a good thing I cleaned my SNES pad since this game uses the start button a lot. My SNES start button seems to wear out after a while so I had to take it apart and clean it.

Both MP and TLOZ had a extra logo that stated that they sold a million copies. I must have gotten a later printing of them both since the normal box art doesn’t say that. So this is pretty much a painting app. Along with a 16 bit music generator. I doubt I ever got much out of either of those things other than drawing something bad looking and a bunch of jumbled musical tracks. Yet the stilly fly mini game was the reason I played this the most. It may just be swatting a bunch of flies and dodging their attacks. Yet it is just so addictive. Other than T2 The Arcade Game I don’t own any other game that uses the SNES mouse. Seems like a dead on arrival device.

So this is my favorite Mega Man game but it doesn’t have much company with MM8 being the other one I own. This may have been when they ran out ideas for robot masters but it is still a well put together game. The man addition to the gameplay was adding a charge shot to Mega Man’s buster. Storyline wise it throws a new villain into the mix with Dr Cossack but he still assembles the usual set of 8 robot masters. The great thing about Mega Man is that you start to get better at it the more times you die. Like noticing how to dodge boss attacks or knowing when to jump is something you’ll learn when playing through one of these. Since it is no easy task to finish a MM game.

Yup this is exactly like playing the board game. The main difference is that different animations play depending on which area the player lands on. The cards and game pieces are also animated as well. What more can I say about Monopoly? It’s the game everyone seems to end up playing even though it takes forever to finish.

The only thing I like about this game is that it has a bad end when the player gets a game over. I always like it when developers add extra scenes like that in games. At first this didn’t seem so bad but once I got to the sewer level I lost any interest in continuing. Not that it does anything bad but it really is just another generic platformer that gives Bart limited superpowers if you pick up different icons. Yet using the laser eyes power up would actually miss enemies compared to his normal attack. Along with slow moving platforms I was really ready to stop playing this game.

At least in my eyes this might be the best classic sonic game although CD is indeed a close second. At this point Sonic finally caught up with Mario sidekick wise and gameplay too. The addition of his speed dash gives the player the ability to get back up to speed quickly after coming to a stop. Tails gave me a way for my friends to play along with me even if they were left behind a lot. Even the new special stages became my favorite kind compared to the rest of the series.

This is a surprise but this NES game might just be better than the alternate SNES game coming up. The title tells you everything you need to know about the story. Spider-Man must stop the Sinister Six again. To do this he will need to punch his way through a level. For the first fight against Electro I found the jump kick to be the best way to deal with him. Since Spider-Man has limited web shot it makes it impossible to save them for the boss unless you don’t use them at all. His web slinging skills seem pretty pointless for most of the first level and the 2nd. I might have made it one more level into the game if the developers didn’t create a area that I wasn’t able to get out of. So Spider-Man met his end by a bunch of rats jumping on him about 10 times and I was out of continues too.

By the way both of these games were made by LJN which is always a mark of “quality.” So why is this game worst than the last one? At first it might seem better because after the first level you get to choose between 5 playable characters. Each one has a different flavor of bad. Spider Man must collect bombs in order to finish his first level which would be okay if that didn’t mean you had to collect 30 of them. Storm somehow gets the water level set which surprisingly was okay for that kind of level. Wolverine gets the standard kill everything level with a ton of enemies. Cyclops gets a similar level set as the last but it now has a instant death floor. Finally Gambit gets to run away from a giant spiked ball and he has a limited amount of cards. So yeah you get a lot of variety yet most of it just isn’t fun to play.

The worst thing a beat em up can do is slow down the combat to a glacial pace. Super Double Dragon may add more ways to beat foes but when it takes 3-4 knockdowns to just take out a Williams it starts to get bogged down. During this revisit I was always happy to see nunchucks since it takes down enemies at a much more reasonable rate. Partially thanks to the slow pace they added in a block button which is actually quite awesome since it allowed me to counter attacks if timed correctly. Seeing an early example of timed counters in a video game is interesting.

Making a Superman game is hard so why not make him really weak? That seems to be the motto they went with this time because it is really easy to die. Sure Superman can take about 10 hits but levels go on for so long unless you know how to dodge every attack getting to the end of round 1 is tough. Until today I’m not sure I ever saw the 2nd level. This also goes into my pile of action platformer games. Although it does have side scrolling flying levels if you manage to get to them. As for the plot Superman must save a bunch of random people and kids. Going by the game over screen Brainiac seems to be planning something. My “favorite” power limiting system is in effect here too with the player required to wait a while before using more heat vision etc.

Super Mario Land 2 keeps the unique environments from the first game while also expanding the level set to better match his console games. This is the first appearance of Wario who has captured Mario’s castle (Uh where did Mario get a castle?) and sealed the door that needs 6 golden coins to unlock. Mario will need to travel to 6 worlds that all have unique enemies that fit their design. Like the Halloween themed level has Vampires and Yokai in it. Power up wise Mario still has his fire flower and an additional one that gives him bunny ears that allow him to glide. I don’t think enlarging sprites on the GB is always a good choice but in this case it works well.

Super Star wars has been one of my favorite SW games even though it is a tough game to beat. Playing on easy may seem like a cop out but if you want to have fun it is the best way to play this. Taking less damage allowed me to beat this game even though I usually had to cheat to win. Must be thanks to me watching the speed run from AGDQ. I also love how much liberty the developers took with creating bosses. Fighting the sarlacc pit at the beginning and even fighting the tractor beam core near the end is really hilarious.

Wrestling games is another ? in my gaming library. Why is that? Well other than seeing clips of it while surfing tv I’ve never even watched one show. Thanks to GB I now know a lot more than I really should know about the crazy world of wrestling. Also that most of the games based on it are pretty bad like this one. It feels super slow since punches and kicks take forever to come out. It doesn’t appear to have a grapple button so it mainly seems to happen if you just get close to an opponent. The worst thing about it is that it has no progression which means all you can do is set up one fight and then you go back to the menu afterward.

I slightly remember the cartoon this game was based one. The game itself is like if someone took the car from outrun and put Taz in its place. While also giving him the task of eating all the Kiwi’s. Other than grabbing things to eat Taz’s main skill is his whirlwind dash which should be used sparingly since most of the time it lead to me getting hit by a bus. The amount of stuff the game throws at you the closer you get to the end makes it really tough to win. Every level also looks similar with the only variation being that that they change the palette. Which makes a game I doubt I’ll come back to often.

Turtles III might just be the other TMNT beat em up you didn’t know about. It may use a lot of assets from the previous arcade port but this is an unique game. With its own set of bosses that are brand new. Unlike the last game this one is better made for the NES difficulty wise. It may get tough but it never feels like it is trying to eat all my qualters like many arcade games. The added downward throw attack is a great way to kill everything but bigger enemies in one hit so it isn’t too hard to get to the boss without losing a life. If you enjoy the other TMNT beat em ups you should check this one out.

The Majors proves that following the rule of simplicity is sometimes more fun than a complex game. Similar to RBI baseball timing is key to victory here. Getting a home run or even just a nice base hit will play a small animation celebrating your victory. This was also my first taste of playing a baseball game and I ended up playing it a lot. It may not do anything special but I still enjoyed playing it again.

This wasn’t the Yoshi game you expected huh. This is a match 2 puzzle game. As you might think this doesn’t give the player much chance for puzzling out a crazy combo. Instead it is about using Yoshi eggs to clear the entire stack. If the a bottom of a Yoshi egg is at the bottom of a mixed stack of icons it will clear the entire roll. This seems especially vital once the game starts throwing 3 blocks at a time since it will quickly fill up the board. I never played this game often and whenever I did play it just came down to playing it till I got one game over.

Conclusion

Alright so what can I say about another random collection of games again. Wrestling based games started to show up here but they won’t get seen again till the next generation of consoles. The Sonic game that convinced me to buy every Sonic game on the Genesis was released this year. At this point Nintendo put most of their eggs into the SNES and gameboy. The NES will still get one more great game by them but that won’t happen this year. Looking ahead I will need to split my blog posts into two parts to even be able to put them up in a reasonable amount of time. I may do all this writing in advance but inserting all the photos takes a lot longer than you might think. I’ve gotta look to the future which is why next time will feature giant robots and a rocket powered car.

1991

Welcome to the start of a 10 year rivalry that most likely inflamed the hearts of kids around the world thus beginning the console war. Personality I didn’t get access to either side till they were around for a few years. My NES library gets one last hurrah before it gets knocked down below the new consoles. This year was punctuated in my mind by the release of SMW while it also shows I’m willing to try other genres with Sim City.

Super NES

Did I even care about the fact that this new console had 16bits of power or the ever famous mode 7 graphics when I got it? The answer is no because all I needed to know was that it was the next Nintendo console. After having so much fun with the NES I wasn’t going to skip over this new Nintendo device. Like the time period we are in now the improvement in graphics didn’t really blow my mind at this point. Sure everything looks/sounds better but it wasn’t a crazy leap in how the games actually looked which is what we will see in the next time.

Genesis

Sega does what Nintendon’t. A slogan I still remember no matter how much I try to forget. This was my first time seeing someone else try to make a console. While also racking up a bunch of unique games that could only be played on it. Thus that was the main reason I decided to ask for one around Christmas. If it wasn’t obvious yet I was insanely spoiled. It isn’t like I came from a rich household so at this point I wonder how my Mom managed to buy all these games for me. Anyway Sega always seemed to give off a cool vibe compared to Nintendo. Yet that wasn’t enough to make it my main device since Nintendo will hold that award for quite a while.

Battletoads has to be one of the most unfair beat em ups around. Everyone remembers the turbo tunnel being hard but that is actually fair compared to a level later on. Although I didn’t make it to it during this session level 11 expects the player to input directions perfectly or you’ll end up dead within 20 seconds. Other than the unfair difficulty the beat of up parts are alright. Smashing enemies off into orbit is fun and the game does mix up the gameplay a lot with different types of levels. Yet getting through them will take a bunch of memorization and skill if you want to make it to the end.

This isn’t the version based on the arcade game and is instead is a action platformer. Data East didn’t feel like programing 4 playable characters so instead you get to use Captain America and Hawkeye. Iron Man and Vision have been captured by Mandarin so it is up to the rest of the Avengers to save the day. Cap seems to have more attack power than Hawkeye since enemies die within one throw of the shield compared to 2 hits with arrows.

Oddly both of the playable characters are split up at first so the player has to move them both onto the same level if you want to be able to switch between them. At the start the game tells you that collecting crystals will power up your playable character but I never noticed it affecting anything. Collecting a key is also vital to finishing any stage in this game but thankfully you only need one. I prefer the other version of this game but this one is alright.

Only one Capcom game this year based on the strangest Disney tv show. Somebody took Baloo from the Jungle Book and transplanted him into a universe where he is a ace pilot. Strange but I remember enjoying watching it. The game is a side scroller shooter although the gimmick of this one is that you can go in reverse. Going backwards is also needed in certain boss battles as well. Although a few of the bosses seem like I had to take a few hits to win. Conveniently after every level it is possible to upgrade Baloo’s plane. More bullets, extra heath and a speeder engine are all buy able if you have enough money. All of them help out but I found the rapid shot was the best for beating enemies faster.

This was my first golf game. Although I can’t compare my stats it seems like my virtual golf skills have improved. That isn’t by much since the best I managed to do this time was get par a lot with a ton of bogeys. Which is a lot better than getting a bogey on every hole. This has about everything you would want from a golf game. It has 3 18 hole courses and you can even customize which clubs you can use. Overall it is a well featured golf game that I never really put much time into.

So this is just me inferring this but Metroid II is kinda dark. When you think about it Samus is killing off every living metroid on a planet which seems a bit cruel. Especially after seeing the ending which proves that they could be tamed. Anyway the first thing I noticed when booting this up again was that Samus seems a bit oversized. It's like they went in the reverse direction after Super Mario land.

The game itself is set up in a similar format as every other Metroid game. Other than the addition of requiring the player to kill every Metroid. It really is to bad they didn’t add a map till Super Metroid since this feels more linear although they do have branching paths even if you have to go down them all. Samus may only start out with missiles and her regular shot the game quickly gives you access to a smattering of old and new power ups like the spider ball. If my memories are correct the most important power up is more missiles because the final boss takes a crazy amount of damage before it dies.

The name of the game is The Rocketeer and they don’t even let you use the rocket till the end very end of the first level. Plus it can only be used if the player picks up gas cans. I’m sure giving the player access to infinite rocket fuel all the time would have broken some of these platforming levels. I was once again impressed by the cut scenes introducing the game which I assume slightly followed the plot of the film this was based on. Once I actually got into the game it was rather sub par thanks to a few bad design decisions. Like the fact ammo is a pickup. Running out of ammo and then having to rely on a punch is just not fun when most enemies have a gun.

If you thought I hated having to collect six keys to end a level this game is in another league entirely. Aliens have decided to take over the earth body snatcher style but they need a bunch of purple objects to succeed. Bart hears about this plan and decides to stop it by spray painting everything in Springfield red. Around 25 items per level need to be painted red but you need to find some spray paint before you can even start painting. Along the way the player will need to dodge a bunch of hoping aliens along with any purple humans since they hurt Bart. Different shops can be accessed to buy items but I never got a chance to use them before quickly getting a game over. At least in this era limited resources along with required collectibles leads to a unfun game.

Other than a downgrade graphically this is a good port of the arcade game. They even emulated the arcade set up by letting me use two different NES pads. Which works really well and it let me blast my way to the final boss for the first time. Unfortunately the twin snakes finally did me in. This game seems like it was balanced for normal gamepad control so it felt a lot easier with the 2 controller setup. Otherwise I would have ended up getting a game over a few minutes after beating Mutoid Man. Overall this is a great dual stick shooter that holds up to this day.

This was my first taste of the city building genre. Yet I never quite figured out how to create a self sufficient city. Eventually the influx of cash runs out and the city just can’t grow anymore. At least when things go bottom up it is always fun to start a disaster to wipe out the town. My favorite disaster has always been the monster attack which is just Bowser coming into town to wreak the place.

I was surprised to see that some old saves were still accessible on my SNES. One was just the practice island and the other was a ramshackled city that was just spread out a bit to much. The one I made today had the power plant and industry off on their own. With the rest of the town beyond the edge of pollution it seems like it was going well. At least I was making about $100 in taxes before stopping this session. That doesn’t seem very profitable though.

Here is where the 10 year rivalry begins. Thanks to some great marketing Sonic became a cool blue hedgehog that was all about speed. Playing green hill zone may also give that impression on the player too. Yet going full speed isn’t quite good for actually beating any level other than the first. Jumping blindly into areas later on was just a good way to fall into spikes or a pit.

I actually didn’t pick this up till much later via a used copy in a K-mart. So I actually played this one after the sequel was out. Even back then it was a little rough to go back to after playing the sequel that improved on everything. The bosses in this one are rather basic although at least early on the level design seems to be good. Plus Sonic’s platforming skills are still really responsive in his first outing.

Super Mario World is easily one of the best 2D Mario games around. At this point Mario’s platforming controls have been honed to perfection. Adding in new elements like the cape and even Yoshi gives the player new ways to complete a level. Even the new element of secret exits gave players a reason to come back just to unlock the fabled star road.

Comparing this game to what Sonic was doing makes it even more amazing how Sega managed to cut down the juggernaut Nintendo was at this point. At least from my point of view SMW is easily the better game. Anyway this tends to be a game I pull out to play every now and then because it holds up so well. Thanks to how much I’ve played it over the years I can still remember how to get to almost every secret exit.

At this point it must be very obvious that I tended to want to buy just about any game based on a cartoon. Yet that fact didn’t mean that I owned a lot of bad games. Most of the time they were at least well put together games like this one. Based on the Loony Toon spin off cartoon from this time it stars Buster who must save Babs from Montana Max. Saving someone really is the plot of a ton of NES games huh. Once again this is another platformer but it does have some variety depending on which playable side character you choose before starting a stage. Buster has a crazy high jump and if you pick the duck he has a shorter jump but can glide.

I know this shocking but this game is another platformer. Insert the usual plot point here. The main difference compared to every other game like this is that Jerry must use items to defeat enemies. Jumping on enemies is just too unrealistic for a cartoon mouse so he must throw balls at them. I found other items like the hammer but it is a close range weapon which makes it weaker than the default ranged shot. Going by the first few levels they seem to be focused on making maze like areas that take a while just to figure out where Jerry has to go to finish each one. To put the cherry on the top of the amount of ehhh this game has the first boss is over instant death water.

These next two games are apart of my I’ll buy that for 3$ collection that I picked up from a local pawn shop recently. Kinda wish I didn’t get this one since it is a bad fighting game starring the hero Ultraman. Since the game doesn’t have a intro I assume he must defeat a smattering of foes from his past in 1v1 combat. His moves come down to having one punch/kick along with a special move attack that needs to be charged. The worst thing about that charge is that you need a level 4 special to finish the monster once it's lifebar is empty. Thanks to that I didn’t want to use any special moves since it takes 30 seconds for a full charge. So the entire time I was playing this all I was doing was kicking the monster a bunch before using a finishing blow on him.

U.N. Squadron turned out to be more than worth the minimal amount of money I spent for it. It is a side scrolling shooter that lets the player choose which mission to do next. Similar to Talespin yet a lot more complicated it lets you choose your weapon loadout before each mission. Depending on which fighter jet you choose you will have access to different sub weapons. This game also requires the player to switch between the jets depending on the mission type. For example the cave mission I got to required me to use the YF23 fighter because it was the only one that let me shoot upward. Without it hitting the boss was pretty much impossible. Getting to the stage right before the last one is always a bummer.

Compared to other PC focused games that were ported to NES they did a good job on converting mouse controls to a gamepad. Actually figuring out where in time is Carmen Sandiego takes a lot of knowledge about different time periods. Unless you happen to be a history professor figuring out where to go next in time can still be quite tough. Maybe they planned it that way to give kids a reason to search out the answer in a encyclopedia. After all they don’t go into much detail about each time period.

Conclusion

1991 appears to be the start of a transition. A new set of consoles came out but not until the end of the year. Which would explain why I own so few launch titles. I continued to buy cartoon related games more than anything else at this point. Even in this time period licensed games seem to have a variable quality to them. They could be great while others being complete trash. I’m much more selective now than my I gotta have them all attitude I appear to have at this point. Tune in next time to see another link to my past and Yoshi finally gets his own game.

Welcome to the 90’s! We haven’t entered the age of cool yet but this might just be the height of NES popularity. With the SNES on the horizon a lot of developers have gotten quite good at pulling out every last bit of power out of this little console. This is noted by the improvements in Super Mario Bros 3 or Castlevania III. These were also examples of developers returning to what they did best after the experimental second act in both of these franchises. My collection this year is quite large which makes this a really long blog post. I’m beginning to think ¼ of my collection from this time is Capcom games.

1990

It took me a few levels and facing the Medusa boss to jog my memories of playing this game. This is the first time a game has tried to tell a on going story as you progress. At least in this version you play as unwilling teenage hero named Astyanax who gets pulled into another world by a fairy named Cutie. If he wishes to return back to his world he must take down a evil wizard and rescue the princess. This is told via still images that have a anime style to them.

I was also impressed by the translation which had very few errors. The game itself is a action platformer with the main focus on swinging a ax around to kill enemies. A magic attack can also be used to clear the screen. Going from cut scene to game is kinda odd since you go from bishonen anime dude to buffed up armored He Man looking guy. No clue why they did that. I must say this was a unexpected gem in my collection.

The best light gun game on the NES right here. Why is this better than the rest? Well at this point Nintendo knew the margin of error for the Zapper so they give the player a large enough target that you can actually hit it with some accuracy. 4 different shooting events gives the player enough reason to keep coming back. Especially if you play this in a party format to see who can get the highest score. Yet the best thing ever is that you can get your revenge on the duck hunt dog by “accidentally” shooting him during the balloon event.

Batman makes no qualms about giving the player tough platforming levels mixed in with boss encounters. It seems to be based on the movie that came out around this time although it all plays out in silent format with the cut scenes mainly showing off how cool the bat-mobile is. Overall this is a well made action platformer that slowly keeps ramping up the difficulty to challenge the player as they go along. The fact that Batman has a ton of control that allowed me to control the distance of my wall jumps is something I did not see often from this time period. Plus the rest of his moveset was just as useful too. A good licensed game these days is a rarity but this happens to be one of those.

Going from one of the harder games on the NES to a easy one. Bugs Bunny was invited to a birthday blowout yet all of his loney toon friends really don't want him to make it to the party. In order to make it to his party he will need to platform and hammer any foes that stand in his way. This premise makes very little sense and the game itself is rather easy. Yet the game is well put together.

What appears to be a top down shooter starring the world's best F-14 pilot Skyhawk actually has a few tricks up its sleeve. For one it has different objectives depending on stage. The perspective changes on the shoot down the fighter stages to emulate the camera angle of After Burner. Finally you also happen to be in command of a space f-14 because after every 2 levels you dock with a space station to upgrade/restock special weapons.

So I've watched Vinny play through this and even watched a speed run of it. I'm obviously ready to take down Dracula. That isn't quite true but I did at least know what I was getting into compared to the first time I played this. I did manage to get to the 4th level before getting a game over which is a lot better than every other time. Plus the 8 bit soundtrack mixed with the satisfying whip attack always kept me coming back even if I've never gotten to the final boss.

Until Rare Replay came out I didn't realize that I owned more of their games than I thought. Including this one starring a spelunker who is after a grand treasure. Like many similar adventurers this one has a issue with heights but at least it isn't instant death like some other games. As the name implies you do a lot of digging although you will also need to use dynamite and ladders to succeed in this expedition. Since it is a puzzle platformer the fact that you can't look below the screen leads to ending up at a dead end a lot.

My love of anything Disney during this period did lead to me buying just about every game related to them. It is a good thing Capcom spent some time making these games good. Really this time period may have accidentally pushed a lot of people into thinking that licensed games were mostly on the good side.

Anyway the Magic Kingdom stars you the player as a Indiana Jones Jr lookalike form to search through the theme park to collect silver keys. Mickey and the crew just don't have time to do all the work so why not make a kid do it eh. Each attraction is a different mini game. Both the pirate and the ghost house are platformers. While the train and race track stages are a race against time. The pirate level is especially tough thanks to the fact you can't even damage a enemy without using a barrel placed around the level. I didn't get to collect all the keys but I assume the castle might be another level as well.

This has to be the one game I've beaten the most in my NES library. Compared to most of the games on NES this one is really easy. Even during my 30 minute visit I ended up getting to the end of the game. The story of this game is pretty much cutting a episode of the tv show to it's bare essentials. Chip and Dale must beat up Fatcat because he is doing something evil. So it isn't going to win any awards for it's great story. It is notable to me at least for being the first simultaneous co op game. So you didn't need to wait for your turn to play a level. Since the main mechanic is picking up items and throwing them this could lead to some antics in coop. If the one thing NSMB taught me was that it is kinda fun to mess with your co op partner.

I've always found it hilarious that this game changes slightly depending on if you suck at top down shooters. The first level is the final level of the previous game similar to what Castlevania: SOTN does. It is quite a bit easier so it is very unlikely that you'll die but if you do the storyline changes. Plus in general it makes the game a lot easier although you do get a silly ending instead of the real one.

Either way what you will be playing is a good top down shooter with similar systems as the Xevious series. Instead of a space ship you play as a epic dragon that has to travel through time and defeat a bunch of giant bosses. Like just about every game like this more upgrades you get the easier the game becomes but if you die it knocks you down back to a peashooter. In general I recommend this game to anyone that might not have played this before since it is a really good game.

Another game to that I could add to a list of games with great 8 bit soundtracks. It is quite amazing what some composers could do with such limited hardware. Journey to Silius stars Jay who's father has been killed by “terrorists.” Those terrorists happen to be comprised entirely of robotic enemies.

If the slightly off tune intro music didn't give it away the giant Terminator boss later on does. They must have had the Terminator license at some point but lost it. I also consider this game rather unfair since it almost requires the player to die to beat certain bosses. Taking a few hits is 100% required to beat most of the bosses so if I went into a boss encounter with low health I was almost guaranteed to lose.

Kickle is in quite a pickle, every land has been frozen solid by a evil wizard. Conveniently he loves cold weather so it is up to him to travel across the 4 lands and save the 4 princesses who have been captured by the Wizard's minions. The game is a of a puzzle variety with the main focus being turning foes into ice blocks that are then used to fill in holes to obtain roses that are required to complete each level. After I finished off the first world they started to add new enemies and obstacles in every level to make them tougher. The first boss which happened to be a giant chicken with a eye patch tested my dodging skills more than my mind.

Out of the NES Capcom games I own this is most likely the worst one. Based on the movie this game follows Nemo as he journeys through Slumberland. It is another platformer but Nemo can't hurt anything without some help from some animal pals. After feeding them candy he can control them for a while. Each animal has different skills that will let him collect all the keys in the level. Those keys are a key reason why I never played this game much. Getting to the end of the level only to realize I didn't collect all the keys is just not fun.

Mission Impossible actually plays like a top down Zelda game but instead of using a sword you have a gun. It also has 3 playable characters that have their own unique weapon sets. Like the Tv show this is based on it features Jim and his companions as they tackle another impossible mission. I just wish the first real area didn't turn out to be a sewer level. It even has enemies that only skill is to push the player into the water. This game does feature NPCs that gave me hints on where to go next although Konami's sub par translation skills show up again.

The other unlicensed NES game I own. The black cartridge these come in make them stand out in my collection. The carts also feel tougher compared to the normal ones. I really don't know if I need to say much about Pac-Man. It is a really good port of the arcade game. I somehow got to the 2nd intermission that plays after you beat 5 stages where a ghost loses part of himself while chasing Pac Man.

Rock and Roll pinball is my first virtual pinball game. It only features one normal pinball table although it does have 3 other variations. One is a pachico table with a Vegas theme and you can even bet points to get a higher score. Another one actually a VS pinball table with each player being on opposite sides of the table. The final game is a variation of ice hockey although instead of attacking with a paddle you use a pinball flipper. The solo table wasn't that fun and the rest could have been if I wasn't playing against the CPU.

The very first talking NES game if the box art is to be believed. It features Big Bird and his Sesame Street pals as they teach kids name recognition and how to spell 3 letter words. Big Bird does speak to the player the entire time and compared to the previous learning games this one could have had the most impact on helping someone to spell simple words. The game part doesn't seem that fun though since it I really is just picking out characters that might hide in different windows.

As you may be able to infer by the title you'll be hearing Shake Rattle and Roll along with other 1950's music. It fits the tone of the game more than you would expect. The game itself is a 3D platformer that has a couple of snakes as the protagonists. They need to jump and eat enough dots to open up the end of the level. The weirdest thing about this premise are the enemies which include toilet seats and even a giant foot. Well it is a Rare game and a another example of them making a 3D platformer before Super Mario 64.

Spot isn't quite cool yet so instead of a platformer starring 7ups mascot you get a board game. You will pretty much be playing Reversi. Where the goal is to get more spots with your color compared to your opponent. I guess to give some flair to the game every time you move it plays a animation with Spot doing something silly. This slows the game down a bit to much so it is also good that it is possible to turn off the animations. A lack of any other options left me never playing this game often.

Who was the person that convinced someone at Capcom to use the name Street FIghter on a game that wasn’t even slightly connected to it. They named the main character Ken and going by the text crawl in the beginning he decided to be a scientist after winning the street fighter tournament years ago. Some evil dude decided to kill Ken’s new friend Troy and steal some research they were working on. It is up to Ken to use his cybernetic abilities to get his revenge on a evil organization.

The game itself isn’t even slightly a traditional fighting game. You are given a bar that needs to be filled to expand the range of your attacks. So instead of only being able to hit an opponent from a few pixels away you can fire sonic boomish attacks from across the screen if you collect enough. I will say that each level starts out with a VS screen but that doesn’t mean you’ll be fighting in a arena. Platforming along with climbing is now apart of cyber Ken’s repertoire Overall it seems alright although dying really hinders the player since your across the screen attack goes back down to a basic attack.

Now that I once again beat SMB3 I have to wonder if I ever beat this the normal way. Why play all of those levels when you can just skip directly to the end with some warp whistles? I’ve certainly tried to beat every world before but I usually end up having to turn off my NES before getting to the end. Like SMB2 it took a bit to get this one to work. Mostly thanks to how much I blew into my NES cartridges in the past. The addition of new power ups and the world map only added to what they started with SMB. They will continue to expand the Mario formula in a 2D format for one more time but that’ll have to wait till the next generation of consoles. As a side note I seem to have two copies of this game. Most likely thanks to already having one before getting another with the toploader NES.

You may not expect this but this is a great port of the TMNT arcade game. The only downside is that you can’t continue when you run out of lives so it is twice as hard unless you know how to deal with bosses without getting hit. Like the last game April has been kidnapped by shredder and it is up to the turtles to save her. This time it is in beat em up format similar to FInal Fight. This NES port is a downgrade graphicly and it has a few flickering sprites. Yet it is a complete port of the arcade game with all the cutscenes and levels presented in a 8 bit format. I also noted that this version has an early example of in game advertising. The 2nd level features falling billboards with the Pizza Hut logo.

I believe this is the last game show game you’ll see in my collection. The real reason why these games are in my collection is that my mom originally got the NES for her to play. Since she enjoyed watching game shows it makes sense she would pick these games up. Drawing on a NES pad seems like a bad decision so the developers were smart in giving the player the option of letting the CPU draw. Sure they do give the player the option of drawing whatever word they decide to give you but it requires another player to do anything. Kinda odd how they programed in a lot of drawings yet no CPU opponents. I also noticed a few “special” translation errors like after getting a correct answer the player characters will yell HAIRY instead of hooray.

Domino's didn’t feel like buying some product placement in a game so with Capcom’s help they retooled a game into one starting The Noid. For some reason the red Noid has turned good and is now platforming through levels to reach pizza eating contests to beat other evil Noids. At least that is what I figured out from the first 3 levels. At least at first the game seems like a run of the mill platformer with no issues. Even the odd pizza eating card game at the end of the first level was okay. Yet once I got to the skateboarding level I found out why I never got very far into this game. The hitbox on the skateboard is weird along with an annoying long jump at the end of the level.

Conclusion

I’m certain that we can start to see what kind of games I prefer during these early years. Sure it is mostly thanks to Mario making the action platformer a thing everyone wanted to make yet it is the type of game I seem to have an affinity for in this time period. This was also the start of my love of beat em up games with TMNT the arcade game which continues to be a type of game I still enjoy. Looking ahead slightly this could be considered the last big hurrah for the NES before a slight downturn in quality thanks to most developers putting more time into the SNES. Games are about to get a dose of cool with the introduction of the Genesis and Sonic The Hedgehog. Not to be left behind Nintendo also released what couldh Super Mario World.

1989

Welcome back to my weekly blog about all of the games I've collected over 29 years. We've now come to the end of the 80's. By this point Nintendo had proved that game consoles were still a viable business practice. So they decided to try releasing a portable device. Thanks to Tetris the Game Boy also succeeded in bringing in a sizable amount of money too. As for my collection the NES didn't see any notable Nintendo games this year. Although this was the start of Capcom's liberal use of many different Disney properties to make some good games like Duck Tales.

Game Boy

I do still own my black and white Game Boy although out of all the portable devices I didn't play it as much. This was mostly thanks to the fact it required 4 batteries so we eventually bought a battery pack. Looking at my collection of GB games again I didn't really own that many till the GBC. I guess the black and green color of all the games didn't really impress me much. Even if this was my first taste of playing a game on the go.

720 was my very first skateboarding game. Also most likely the first game to inspire hatred towards killer bees. I do wonder who's bright idea it was to make killer bees come out randomly to kill the skater once time ran out. Coming back to it now made me realize I would either need the instruction booklet to succeed or end up quickly losing. Either that or the fact this used to be a trackball game doesn't quite transfer very well to NES. At least the slalom event was easy enough that I always got gold.

Oh no a evil dark lord has stolen Lolo's girlfriend and it is up to him to go though a castle full of puzzles. One room puzzles seems to be the name of this game. Every room has heart icons that must be picked up to proceed. Different types of enemies stand in your way like Blocky who as his name implies likes to block you way. Thus forcing the player to suicide if they get caught in a corner. This also brings up the fact that Lolo has lives which is kinda a bummer for a puzzle game. After all it might take multiple attempts to compete a floor. Along with the fact the only way to continue is via a password system lead to me never finishing this game.

So the main thing I remember about this game before booting it up again was collecting a power up that buffed up Amagon and then some awesome 8 bit music starts up to go along with his newfound epic status. Turns out that was fairly accurate. Plus it is actually a alright game too. Whenever he isn't buffed up he uses a rife to shoot down enemies. Although it is more fun to uppercut everything once you do get the power up. I may have only gotten to the 2^nd set of levels but enemy patterns were pretty fair and bosses weren't to hard.

Other than featuring Scrooge McDuck who happens to be the master of cane pogo style of martial arts this game might just have the best space them ever. Scrooge's goal is to become even more rich by visiting 5 different locations and collect a bunch of treasures along the way to a boss encounter at the end of each stage. This is a platforming game but instead of using a normal jump it is required to pogo jump on enemies instead of just jumping on them regularly. This can lead to pogoing through a entire level which is really fun if you pull it off. Plus the music just makes a solid game into a memorable one.

So for most of these games I have at least a vague memory of playing them at some point in my life. Yet I don't remember even booting this game up till now. This was most likely thanks to the fact that I didn't start to appreciate RPG's till I played Dragon Quest 1 & 2 on the GBC. Ultima IV starts with the player creating a party of 4 who must then go out to defeat the dark god Exodus. Unlike most games I think of when I'm remembering this era it does not have random battles. Plus battles play out differently as well. From a top down view the player must move the different members of the party around and choose their attacks. Really this seems like it could be a fun RPG to play if I had some more time to play it.

Who knew moving a marble around a obstacle course could be so fun? I'm sure the arcade release using a trackball controls better but at least for me the 90degrees control scheme worked really well. Not sure how many levels it has but I've never been good at dodging the hammers in the 4^th level. Each level is pretty sort so even running out of time and getting a game over just means it'll take another few minutes to get back to where you left off.

Out of these two Sesame Street educational this one appears to be the one with the most potential for a child to actually learn some math. Even the game part is somewhat fun. That really has been the issue with a ton of educational games is that they aren't that fun to play. Learning basic math and recognizing basic shapes will be what any child would get from this game. It does a good job visually showing the player when they chose a correct answer.

Learning the alphabet is indeed a great basic skill to learn. To bad this game is a bit to simple. Plus some of the later types of learning exercises expect the player to guess the answer. Even the other mini game is just a pipe maze puzzle which has no timer. Thus no real reason to actually keep playing it after one playthrough.

The name of this game tells you everything. Shoot a bunch of targets in a western/haunted house/space theme without running out of time or energy. Unlike the other light gun game I own this one gives the player some margin for error. Although that leads to me seeing all the different environments quickly thus I do not have a reason to keep coming back. To hard or two easy developers just can't win with these light gun games.

Snoopy decided to make his own set of Olympic games which leads to a bunch of silly events. So instead of running 100 meters normally Snoopy turns it into a hackysack race. It also has a few that don't quite fit like a pushing competition on a boat or a test of endurance by trying to hold onto a bunch of pizzas until he reaches a goal. For a game that has a assortment of mini games it wasn't to hard to figure out most of them.

Sure it's a Game Boy game but my original expectations when first booting up this game were rather high. Thus I was disappointed when SML didn't even have 8 stages to play through along with it being rather easy. I was even able to play through all 4 levels during this revisit too. Sure I enjoyed my time with it and the platforming is spot on as well. At least they made up for this mistake with the sequel.

Ah the infamous TMNT NES game. Staring said ninja turtles that are tasked with saving April O'neil while also putting a stop to Shredders devious plans. Really the game leading up to the water level everyone remembers is okay. It's just a action platformer with some annoying enemies.

The fact that you get 4 player characters at once that can be switched out at any time is really unique. To bad half of them are weaker thanks to the range of their weapons. Leo and Don are the best turtles to use thanks to the long ranged attacks plus they do extra damage. After seeing the water level again I think this game is worth putting on my list of games that expect near perfection from the player to compete. The timer along with the electric water weeds made sure I never competed that level.

To The Earth This might be the most unbalanced light gun game I own. The Zapper may be somewhat accurate but the hit boxes on all of the spaceships in this game are just not fair. Along with the quick rate at which missiles get fired at the player I do wonder if it is even possible to beat this game without cheats. Losing energy whenever you fire a shot also makes sure you can't shoot down everything without still losing.

Conclusion

Hm this year really bought out the first educational games that might have actually helped me out. With my mom being a teacher she wanted to help me learn in as many ways as possible. Which lead to a few games like the Sesame Street games being bought every year. The pc at my school also helped out too since I got to play Number Muncher a lot along with other games. Otherwise this year was rather sporadic. Which is how most years will most likely turn out. Compared to everything post SNES I really don't have many memories of this time period. Like I seemed to always get rid of all my boxes but this block of time has me drawing a blank. Does that mean I manly got used games early one which could have lead to me deciding to get rid of any games that actually came in a box? A interesting theroy that might be worth bringing up again later. Next time we head to the 90's with more Disney games and a good TMNT game. More great 8 bit tunes await us next time with my first Castlevania game too. It might be my first year split into 2 blog posts since 22 games on one blog is a bit much.

Yup I am trying to put these articles up weekly. From now on this'll be one year at a time. NES games only once again. This year appears to host quite a few classic games. At least in the US I like how both Zelda 2 and Super Mario 2 were both wildly different games compared to the first games. Mario 2 may just be a reskin of Doki Doki Panic but I do wonder what Nintendo was thinking when they decided to turn Zelda into a side scrolling adventure instead of using the top down viewpoint. At minimum it gives the game a unique take on a formula we've seen many times by now.

1988

Zelda II the Adventure Of Link follows Link as he roams the land trying to cure Zelda's sleeping curse by defeating 6 guardians and then placing a crystal at each shrine. At the time Zelda 2 soured me on franchise slightly. Although that was mostly thanks to how hard it is. A few years ago I ended up doing a compete playthrough of it and now I at least have a new found respect for the direction they decided to go in.

Seeing it now continues to reaffirm my new stance. The side scrolling viewpoint gives this game new ways to challenge the player compared to the top down view. Along with the combat still feeling great even if certain enemies are really annoying like the armored guard. Collecting items and magic to take down foes easier is just as fun as any other game in this long running franchise.

Donkey Kong follows Mario as he tackles a skyscraper to save his girlfriend Pauline from DK. Afterwards Mario decided to get his revenge by caging up DK and throwing a bunch of snakes at his son DK Jr who is trying to rescue him. Both games are only 3-4 screens each with them both going on indefinitely till the player runs out of lives. At least in the case of the first game I've always had the most trouble with the falling barrels. Only because they seem to be random unlike the other two stages. Climbing vines in DK Jr adds a new mechanic which makes it just a fun to play. I can't say I'm much of a high score person yet it is still fun to at least come back to these games and play through a few rounds.

I'm sure everyone knows the game show this game is based on. This version looks to be a port of a PC release with Rare being listed as the main developer. The reason why I assume this is a pc port is because they expected me to type out the answers with the dpad. Typing out some of the long answers they expected me to do would have been something I did at the time but these days I'm not in the mood to do that. The game itself seems to be a accurate emulation of the game show except the contestants look like psychopaths.

It wasn't that long ago that I did another play through of the MSX version of Metal Gear. Other than missing a giant robot to fight at the end plus a bad translation this is a good port. It follows the exploits of Solid Snake who must take down a terrorist installation named Over Heaven run my Colonel CaTaffy. (Yes that is how the instruction booklet spells his name.) I did notice something these game had over the MSX version. I was able to hide under cameras and let them pass by so I sneak by which was not possible on the MSX. Yet neither one had a quick select for items. This leads to a lot of time spent looking at the item screen to progress. Overall I still find this game fun to play though and it is a game that can still be enjoyed even if you are a modern Metal Gear Solid fan.

Out of all the games I've actually played again recently before writing these articles this one is a rather random choice. It stars Mickey and Minnie who are on a vacation? Or are they on a adventure through pirate ships, forests and even a castle. Well whatever they are up to this is a game that controls well plus the difficulty is reasonable. But it has the worst secret mechanic ever since sometimes a enemy will appear and take Minnie away. To get her back you must find a hidden key and then randomly choose a statue that'll either turn out to be her or a fake. Repeat this process till she is found. The only way this wouldn't be a issue is if you don't get hit. Thus most of the time I spent playing through this game was getting sidetracked.

I do wonder if I just happened to buy a lot a arcade game ports early on or the NES should have been glad that arcades were doing so well during its early years. Anyway Millipede stars a heroic space pilot who must single-handedly stop a giant bug invasion of earth. Like Galaga he can only shoot faster if his laser bullets hit thus it is easier to wait till the enemies get closer. But if the giant bugs get to the bottom of the screen the player has no way to stop them.

Other than millipedes slowly making their way down to the bottom of the screen if you get far enough in you'll face giant scorpions that fly in a pattern towards the bottom. In those stages it is more about dodging them all. I haven't mentioned it till now but most of these arcade ports have a A and B game with the B side being harder. Seems like they wanted to give the player a little something extra since it isn't to hard to get past the first few sections that then begin to repeat till the player gets a game over.

Ah the worst paper route ever full of break dancers, road workers and even death appear to stop the best paperboy in the world. At least he better be the best since getting through the week will take some skill. I made it to Thursday after a few tries but most of my runs ended the day before. Actually keeping everyone subscribed without dying didn't quite happen during my revisit either. At least I made it to the top of the high score table although that wasn't much of a challenge.

Well I assume this game is about a epic death race. At least the first stage seemed that way since I spent most of it bashing other racers into walls. Saving little blue people for points along with collecting energy so the bike doesn't run out is something you'll need to do to succeed. Really this is just a side scrolling shooter staring a guy on a bike instead of a space ship. I rather enjoyed revisiting this game so it is to bad the levels start repeating after finishing the 2nd one. Sure all similar games repeat fairly quickly but this game repeated slightly to soon.

I don't want to surprise anyone with this comment but Super Mario Bros is a absolute classic video game. It was the start of the platformer mascot era that lasted for two console generations. This was thanks to the tight the controls in SMB that kept players coming back to beat a level they failed. The game itself isn't crazy hard but the fact that most players only got 3 lives required a lot of practice. Or if they found out about the hidden level warps it was a easy way to get back to where they left off. As a random side note I accidentally ran into a glitch. While ending a castle level I ended up dying yet still competing the level.

Of course this is a triple pack of games so it also includes Duck Hunt along with World Class Track Meet. Shooting ducks or skeet is indeed the entire game while Track Meet is the usual set of Olympic events like 100 meter run. Neither one make a great stand alone release but in this triple pact they were at least complimentary. Plus this was also the start of the lightgun type of game thanks to the NES Zapper.

Hm I must have played SMB2 a lot. This was my first NES game that appeared to be corrupted. I was able to still play it. Enemies constantly had the wrong sprites and on the stage select screen Luigi turned into a green Princess Toadstool sprite. While in game whoever I was controlling was made up of two heads stacked onto each other. A game that was a big departure of traditional Mario mechanics was now even more unique thanks to these bugs. Don't think I would be willing to play through the game like this but it was a amusing 30 minute revisit.

Ah yes LJN a name you can trust to make bad games based on different IP's. This early example of their handiwork is just as broken and unfair to the player as any of their other games. From a top down perspective the player controls one of two X-men while the other one is AI controlled. Yes a AI companion in a NES game. Unsurprisingly it spends most of its time getting stuck in the environment and dying from enemies. After they die it is up to the player to die from instant kill doors or fire that either give very little time to move though or pretty much require a invincibility power up to get through. Without those issues this could have been a forgettable game but instead it remains in my memories as the very first bad game I've ever played.

By the way this is my first Nintendo game that doesn't have the seal of quality. Last year I got to play the Vidicators at Galloping Ghost Arcade so I can actually compare the two versions. Surprisingly the NES is the better version from my point of view. Sure the arcade game may have a joystick that emulates how you might steer a tank but the NES pad does a fine job of featuring a similar control scheme. If I remember correctly the arcade game seemed to have a stuttery frame rate compared to the rock solid one in this version.

The graphics are heavily downgraded but thankfully it has no flickering at all.Being able to upgrade the tank while going through stages is cool and the only read downside is that the first boss seems built to be a anti tank vehicle. Maybe I just didn't have the right tools for the job but the auto lock on shot didn't seem to do enough damage and tanking a bunch of shots just left me almost dead after beating it. Other wise I really enjoyed revisting this game.

Wheel Of Fortune

Compared to Jepopardy Wheel Of Fortune works a lot better as a NES game. Other than typing out the answer after picking a bunch of letters it doesn't constantly require the player to type a bunch every 5 seconds. Rare got rid of the silly contestants this time by not even showing them spin the wheel. Everything runs well and it plays like a episode of WOF. Also it turns out I'm bad at guessing phrases.

Conclusion

Overall 1988 was a really good year for game releases. Sure some of these were just re-releases but thanks to the fact I never played them before made this year a memorable one. At least if I actually played these the year they were released. Remember these retrospectives are going by release order and I didn't actually get around to playing some of these games till 92-93. 1989 looks to be the introduction of the Game Boy in my life. Although only one game is on that list. Tune back in next week for the game with the best space music ever and the worst use of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Those first few moments of picking up a controller to play Donkey Kong for the first time will forever be etched into my memories. Since that was my first experience with a video game. (As a side note I played the Donkey Kong Classics version so it won't be in this section of my retrospective.) Twenty-eight years later I continue to pick up a controller to play and create levels in Super Mario Maker. So at first glance it may not seem like much has changed but that isn't true. Over time the types of games I tend to play have changed while the games also change thanks to advances of technology. After thinking about this for a bit I thought it would be nice to play 30 to 60 minutes of each game I own leading up to the present day. While also writing a paragraph about all of the games. Which might not sound like a giant time commitment till I note that I have over 900 video games in my collection. I'll be going in chronological order going by release date. So without further ado let us begin with the NES.

NES

Ah yes the Nintendo Entertainment System, the console that started to revitalize a market that was on a decline. Without Nintendo deciding to put out this "toy" we might not have the type of consoles we currently own. Even the controllers we use might not be the same without the ever vial dpad with buttons combo on a NES pad. A vital and interesting time to get into video games since I got to see them go from 8 bit pixels up to the millions of polygons in modern games. Since I'm going by year early on I won't have to many games to talk about but as my retrospective continues these lists are going to get out of hand. Also I'm playing these games on a toploader NES.

1986

So the fact I own only one game from 1986 isn't much of a surprise when you realize I wasn't even born yet. Commando is a port of a arcade game starting Super Joe who has been tasked with taking out a bunch of POW camps while rescuing prisoners. But really the goal is to shoot/grenade through 4 areas that repeat 3 times with them getting harder as you go along. The fact that they let me continue from where I left off after running out of lives is a slight surprise for this era of games. They also must have wanted to emulate the arcade game as much as possible since they put so many enemies on screen that they constantly flicker at all times. Also during my revisit to this game it re-spawned me in a instant death pit after losing a life.

1987

I don't remember playing this game much but it turns out to be my very first action RPG. I didn't keep any boxes or most of my instruction booklets from this era so I don't quite know what is going on in this game. Other than a knight is fighting a bunch of enemies while leveling up. From my peek into it again the collectible health upgrades didn't seem useful since using a password to continue the game after dying only gives the player 100 heath even if your max is 150. Unbalanced would be what I would call this game with many insta death pits that are easy to fall into along with enemies that like to hit you when coming into a room. As for the combat it just comes down to throwing swords into enemies till they die at least early on. The menu screen lead me to believe it was possible to collect a bunch of items but I didn't get around to collecting any.

I own a few unofficial TENGEN carts but this re-release of Gauntlet actually has the Nintendo seal of quality on it. Like the arcade release this game stars a band of 4 heroes that have a real big issue of losing health every second they are in a dungeon. So it is up to the player to guide them through it quickly picking up enough heath items and not getting hit by the enemies till they reach the deepest floor of the dungeon. This game controls well with minimal flickering for the amount of enemies that'll appear on screen at once.

Getting the exit of each level is simple enough although getting to them without getting hurt is quite a task especially how they lay out every level of the dungeon. Enemy spawn points required me to get hit enough that I needed to pick up all the food on each floor to not run out of life. Battling monsters is simple enough since every hero conveniently has a unlimited amount of swords/spears/arrows/axes to throw toward any threat. To bad I didn't even make it past the ninth level during my time with this game.

Looking at these early NES games they are all mostly arcade ports. Sure this is just my personal collection but it sure looks like most developers early on took the easy way out by porting existing arcade games. The Legend Of Kage follows a Ninja hero who must save a princess who has been captured by a evil shogun. Thus he must swing his sword wildly to block shots while throwing shurikens at his enemies. From the forest leading up the moat and then climbing the shogun's tower is the task our hero must undertake indefinitely. Like Donkey Kong the real goal of this game is to get the most points till you eventually run out of lives. Other than getting harder progressing to the 2nd act it also gives you some new music to listen too.

Evil space aliens have decided to be evil and it is up to space suit guy to save the day by infiltrating their base to blow up section Z. This is all I gleamed from the intro to this game although I'm sure the instruction booklet was more detailed compared to my description. This is one of the few side scrolling space shooters that allow the player to shoot in both directions. Which allowed me to deal with enemies easier although it did lead to me running into enemies if I was to far on the other side of the screen.

Another unique aspect of this game is that it is a maze. At the end of every level it gives you a choice that could lead forward or backward. Which also makes it kinda annoying since going back to a previous stage isn't that fun especially when you have to do it. A energy system replaces a lives system since running out of lives doesn't mean you can't continue. Running out of energy will send you all the way back to the start of the section of levels you are on. Beating the first real boss will give you a new continue point to start from. Along with all of this I stumbled upon a hidden teleport that hindered me by sending me back to the start.

So half the reason I even like Spy Hunter so much is because of the theme song. It may just be a 8-bit take of the Peter Gunn theme yet it is so good and it fits this game so well I always have a reason to put this game into my NES. Plus being a awesome spy car with a assortment of power ups given by a weapons van is fun too. I never quite mastered surviving for very long although I can make it to the first boat section. For a while I assumed it was possible to eventually get to the end of the road yet that isn't the goal of this game. It is all about getting the highest score possible. Which isn't something games focus on as much anymore but that was all I needed to play this game for hours in the past.

My Game Of The Year List may show my top 10 games yet I wanted to mention a few more by using a assortment of categories. Remember this is a list of games I played this year so it isn't going to count every game that came out this year.

Best Visuals

Who doesn't like to be dazzled by the graphical prowess of a video game? These days it may be a bit harder to impress compared to the days of when we went from 2D to 3D. But games continue to impress me either in how good it looks or if they had a great style that left a big impression on me.

#1 Star Wars Battlefront: It is real easy to notice how pretty this game looks when booting it up for the first time. Each location looks like it came right out of the movies. Sure it may not be life like yet but this is one more step in that direction.

Runners up:

Ori and the blind forest: A game that looked like it came out of a animated movie isn't something that comes around often. Ori has a lot of pretty moments that'll impress anyone that decides to check it out.

The Order 1886: Every area in this game looks really nice. Along with the great face capture for all the main characters gives this game a movie like feel.

Best Old Game Of The Year

The great thing about video games is that a lot of them hold up no matter when you play them. No matter how hard one person may try it isn't possible to play them all when they first come out. Which is why I wanted to highlight a few games that I got around to playing this year.

#1 Mario & Luigi's Bowser's Inside Story: I'm disappointed in myself for not getting around to this game till now. The way it managed to tell a fun comical story along with a ton of variety in the combat kept me hooked till the end.

Runners Up:

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair The madness of Danganronpa just continued in the sequel. Over the top courtroom antics along with a great mystery makes this game worth mentioning in this list

Killzone Mercenary: Most of the Killzone games I've played were okay at best so the fact that this vita exclusive turned out to be really good was a surprise. Each level has different variations on objectives that gave me a reason to replay levels which isn't something I do often. Plus the mercenary view point gave me a different way to look at the war with the Helghast.

Best Story

A well told story can make a great game into a spectacular one. Finding games with a well realized universe connected to a unique story is rare. Which is why I wanted to highlight these games.

1# The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt: Geralt's tale is a unique perspective on a tale we've seen many times over. After all being the father of the chosen one isn't a easy cross to bear. The many interesting side quests expand the world of The Witcher as well

Runners Up:

Tales From The Borderlands: Even I couldn't believe that Tell Tale managed to create a well told funny story about Borderlands. Yet they managed to do that and keep my interest in seeing what would happen next for every episode. Plus it had a great cast of characters that were fun to watch for the entire storyline.

Life Is Strange: I didn't get around to playing all the episodes this year but what I did play impressed me. The overall mystery of why Max has her powers entwined with general drama of life is a compelling narrative.

Worst Game Of The Year

Every game can't be a hit which leads to a few duds in the almost endless barrage of new games that come out every year. It may not be the best award but it is worth mentioning a few games that I didn't like at all.

#1 Godzilla:This is also my most disappointed game of the year as well. I had some small hope that this would at least be a mediocre Godzilla game. Yet they go beyond that with horribly slow controls and a linear set of missions that can be competed in less than a hour. Even the upgrade system is a long boring grind that wasn't worth going down. Is it really that hard to make a fun game about destroying a city?

Runners Up:

Hyperdimensional Neptunia U So I can't say I was expecting much out of this game but it impressed me with how much it wasn't even trying to make a fun action game. Absurdly simple enemies mixed with basic beat em up controls made me tire of this game quickly. Not even the upbeat nature of Neptunia and her pals could make me like a bad game.

The order 1886: It's hard to like a story that is easily predictable from the very opening scene. Sure the fantastical moments give it a little spice but no amount of werewolf's could make a sub par story into a good one.

Final Update One last update before the end of the year. Remember it is still possible to donate till the end of this month. Added one more slacker to the top of the list below.

So many people will be streaming on November 7th and our little community has a lot of duders that are willing to join in. Extra Life is a great cause that helps children's hospitals all over the US and Canada. Since everyone posts on the main Extra Life forum post at different times I thought it might be good to have a refresher post to remind you about all of the different streams you could watch and maybe donate to if you can. This is my blog post so I'll start with me but I will list everyone. Let me know if I've made any mistakes. It's a crime that I didn't put this link into this blog till now. Check out www.explosiveruns.com if you want access to all of these streams at once.

EDIT:If you thought Extra Life was over you were wrong. Updated with amounts raised by each live stream. Along with a few updates to some streams that'll happen later. I marked out the info for each duder that already had their stream so it would be easier to locate the ones that will still have a extra life stream later this week. Plus I noticed a few that didn't even get one donation. I'm sure our community still has a few dollars to spare? Ether way good job to everyone that put on a live stream for the kids!

@asmo917

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Asmo917

Start Time: 8:00AM PST Dec 12

Check out his blog if you want to know more about his stream. http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/asmo917/blog/extra-life-for-slackers-december-12th/111865/

Also here is a list of games he could play during his live stream.

@hatking

They are streaming right now December 5th. Check out their Live stream at http://www.twitch.tv/dsvolition/ You can Donate here and here is the entire roster.

@riostarwind $100 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: riostarwind

Start Time: 8:00AM EST Nov 7

I don't have a webcam but I'll be commentating over my stream. I'll be playing a little bit of everything like adventure games (The Fall), unlimited anime (Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds Overdrive), SNES games (Super Mario World) and many more. (Rocket League, Mark of The Ninja) The hospital this stream is trying to make some money for is the WVU Children's Hospital at Ruby Memorial. 1$ donations could win a 20$ PSN card, 3$ for a game from the Capcom Humble Bundle or 5$ to make me play horrible games. More info at my twitch page.

@j3ffro919 $885 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: J3ffro

Start Time: Nov 7

After raising 675$ last year Jeff is back to play games for 24 hours again. He will be playing games like Forza Motorsport 6, The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid V and others. If your willing to donate at least 50$ you could make him play a horrible game for one hour. He is trying to raise money for the UCSF Children's Hospital.

@shindig $50 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: shindigPSC

Start Time: 8:00AM GMT Nov 7

Detailed Blog post about his extra Life plans: Stand and deliver your Money for Extra Life!

Metal Gear V, The Golf Club, Gone Home and more if your interested in checking that out the stop on by this live stream. He is playing for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals

@vixzen $120 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

It looks like she has been doing streams before the start date. But I don't see a twitch link anywhere. She is raising donations for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@juster25 $650 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: ERRORjuster

Start Time: 12:00PM Nov 7

Do you want to watch a LAN party go down live on the internet? Then check out juster25's live stream. He is raising money for the Rady's Children's Hospital.

@kirillorlov $180 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Swansons

Start Time: 10:00AM-10:00PM CST Nov 7 & 10:00AM-10:00PM CST Nov 8

Are you in the mood to watch just about every Simpsons game ever then check out this one. They are raising money for the Children's Hospital of Chicago.

@danteveli

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Danteveli24

Start Time: Nov 7

I don't see any details but he is raising money in general for the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@deliciousbees $11468 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: DeliciousBees

Start Time: 9:00AM PST Nov 7

How many bad games can one group of people handle in a day? Find out with this live stream. They are raising money for the Seattle Children's Hosptial.

@cornbredx $25 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Start Time: Nov 7

I don't see a twitch link anywhere yet. But he is raising money for the dell children's medical center of Texas.

@dwight

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: dwightK

Start Time: 12:00PM Nov 14

They plan on playing a assortment of coop and multiplayer games on Nov 14 a week later than the announced date. While trying to raise some money for Sick Kids.

@jasonmasters $200 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: ChronoShifter

Start Time: Nov 7

Jason is playing a little bit of everything like Destiny, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock, Darkest Dungeon and Dark Souls. Plus a assortment of mystery games as well. He is raising money for the Children's Hosptial of Wisconsin.

@awalkawesome $126 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: freddyhead

Start Time: Nov 7

In the mood to watch someone play through all the Bioshock games then check out this stream. He is raising money for Arkansas Children's Hospital.

@zolloz89 $781 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: MIA

Start Time: Nov 7

Not sure what he is playing but he is raising money for the Beaumont Children's Hospital.

@ramblesnonsense $350 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Youtube Link: Wedge Streams

Start Time: 12:00PM EST Nov 1

He is starting a week early on Nov 1 and is planning some sort of endurance run. Also you can win some prizes like a amazon gift card. While trying to raise money for the Samaritan Medical Center.

@kazona $306 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Youtube Link: Roy

Detailed Blog post: Extra Lifing It

Start Time: 7:00AM CET Nov 7 (10:00 PM PST Nov 6)

Expect to see some Portal 2, Mount Your Friends and other games in this stream. They are raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@meatsofevil $501 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Meatsoevil

Detailed Blog Post: A beginners second attempt at Extra Life

Start Time: 8:00AM CST Nov 7

The one place on the internet you will be able to find 24 hours of Super Famicom games will be this stream. He is raising money for the Children's Hospital of San Antonio.

@jackburt0n $360 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: JackBurtOn55

Start Time: Nov 7

Looking to watch some Resident evil games? Then check out this live stream since he is doing a RE marathon. He is raising money for KU Pediatris Medical Center.

@nickydubz $240 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: NickyDubz

Start Time: Nov 7

Up for some Windjammers or maybe Mass Effect? Then check out this live stream. He is raising money for Riley.

@capnhaggis $515 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: capnhaggis

Start Time: 8:00AM Nov 7

Who knows what games this small group of friends will get into during their Extra Life stream. They are raising money for Sick Kids.

@mrcraggle

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: mrcraggle

Fundy Me Link: mrcraggle

Start Time: Friday the 13th at 11:00am GMT

A giant selection of FMV games await anyone that decides to check out this live stream. He is trying to raise money for Sick Kids International.

@kingringtail85 $225 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Jeff_McFly

Start Time: Nov 7

You'll be seeing plenty of PC and console games in this live stream. He is raising money for the University of Iowa Children's Hosptial.

@teeknuts $525 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Teeknuts

Start Time: Nov 7

Guess what? Video games will be played on this live stream. He is raising money for Gillette Children's Specialty Heath care.

@option $1100 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: DayLateGaming

Start Time: Nov 7

Playing coop games like Destiny with friends is always a fun time and this steam will have plenty of that. They are raising money for The Children's Hospital at Saint Francis.

@jcofdi

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Jcofdi

Start Time: 8:00PM Nov 13

This mysterious live stream might just be about any kind of game. Board games, bad games, weird games they've got plenty of choices. He is raising money for the Sandford Children's Hospital.

@gnomeonfire $5 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: GnomeonFire

Start Time: Nov 7

Are you up for some Assassin's Creed Syndicate? Then check out this live stream. Other games might appear too. He is raising money for Seattle Children's Hospital.

@prewaroregon $170 Raised

Donation Link: Extra LIfe

Twitch Link: PreWarOregon

Start Time: Nov 7

A group of friends will be playing something live on the internet on this stream. They are raising money for Doernbecher Children's Hospital.

@core647 $40 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: KiddjohnKidd

Start Time: Nov 7

So many old games and they are trying to hook up the old systems to some capture gear live on the internet. I'm sure nothing at all will break horribly during this stream. They are trying to raise some money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@elko84 $1300 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: elko84

Start Time: Nov 2

Elko will be starting his live stream on Nov 2. He might be playing some Halo or even take requests from the chat during his stream. Raffle prizes too! He is raising money for the Children's Hospital of Chicago.

@flameboy84 $136 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: flameboy84

Start Time: Nov 7

Well I know he'll be starting off his stream with Super Back to the Future 2. While trying to get some donations for Sick Kids.

@gamedreamer $195 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra LIfe

Twitch Link: game_dreamer

Start Time: Nov 7

Expect to see some video games here. He is raising money for the UH Children's Hospital.

@havochq $370 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: HavocHQ

Start Time: Nov 7

Is to possible to 100% of Chariot in 24 Hours? Find out here while also donating to Operation Enfant Solei.

@Trace $1035 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: PsEG

Start Time: Nov 7

A horror filled 24 hours may be over but the true test will begin on Nov 7. Are you ready to face the horrors of Drive Club? He is raising money for Beaumont Children's Hospital.

@dirtybirdy $650 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Hamlox

Start Time: 8:00AM Nov 7

This stream has a mixture of multiplayer games like Rising Thunder and solo games like Kerbal Space Program. They are raising money for OHSU's Doernbecher Children's Hospital.

@gpink $660 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: GPink

Start Time: 9:00AM EST Nov 7

Are you ready for even more Mario Party? Along with a DnD campaign and even some SNES games. Then check out this stream. They are raising money for Sick Kids.

@theflinn $450 Raised

Donate Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: theflinn

Start Time: 1:00PM Nov 7

Who doesn't like to watch old dudes play a bunch of old games. Check out this live stream if you want to watch some NES,SNES,Genesis or Turbo duo games. Along with P.T. They are raising money for the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

@haychew21 $60 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: haychew21

Start Time: Nov 7

A bunch of Awesomenauts along with some steam requests to play other games will be what you'll see in this live stream. He is trying to raise some money for Texas Children's Hospital.

@auwiz $150 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: tocupine

Start Time: 8:00AM AEDT Nov 7 ( 5:00PM EST Nov 6)

Are you ready to go on a Sonic Adventure? Then this is the stream for you since that will be the set of games played on this live stream. He is raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@the_t $101 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Hitbox Link: TheT113

Start Time: 9:00AM Nov 6

The T will be starting up his stream a day early on Nov 6. If your looking to watch some newer Nintendo games like Splatoon or Super Mario Maker then this is the stream for you. Rare Replay and The Jackbox party pack will also make a appearance. He is trying to obtain a few donations for UF Health Shands Children's Hospital.

@adzpearson $305 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: EuricaeriS

Start Time: 10:00AM Nov 7

These guys have quite the list of games. Between Metroid Prime, Gang Beasts, Jackbox Party pack,Rock band 4 and more you'll always find something new to watch every hour. They are raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@j_unit2008 $380 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Junit90

Start Time: 8:00AM Nov 7

This set of friends will be playing Until Dawn and the Jack Box Party Pack 1&2. Along with whatever else happens to be on their PS4. They are raising money for the Sparrow Children's Center.

@clairvoyantvibrations $66 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: llamanardo

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

This first time duo will be playing games like Divinity Original Sin: Enhanced Edition and possibly a full playthrough of Max Payne 3. Along with whatever else they decide to play. They are raising money for the Toronto based SickKids Hospital.

@revolve $ 5 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: gregplyingpoorly

Start Time: Friday, 7:00AM CST

Looking to watch someone play some SNES games then check out this live stream. He is raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

@alwaysbebombing $105 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: drewduer

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

Can alwaysbebombing beat Super Mario RPG in 24 hours? Find out in this stream while also supporting the The University of Vermont Children's Hospital.

@azzokk $25 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: azzokk

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

You know what I expect to see on this stream? VIDEOGAMES While you are checking out his stream you could also send a donation to Hurley Children's Hospital.

@fattony12000

Donation Link: Extra Life

Youtube Link: maxamaul

Start Time: Now?

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@devil240z

Donation Link: Extra Life

YouTube Link: Justin WillisDevil240Z

Start Time: Saturday, 3:00AM PST Nov 7

If your in the mood to watch some PS4 games then check out this live stream. He is raising money for Seattle Children's Hospital.

@moodymodron $58 rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Youtube/twitch Link: Wayfarer_V Youtube/Twitch

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

They are going to play Fallout 3 to get ready for Fallout 4. You might just see Wasteland 2 or even Earthbound once they finish F3. Golisano Children's Hospital is the place they are they are trying to get a few donations for.

@urban_ryoga $315 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: jonbjohns

Start Time: Saturday, 10:00AM PST Nov 7

He plans on finishing two games during this marathon. Lifeline and Life is Strange. You might even see some random PS2 games if he finishes the first two games. He is raising money for UCDAVIS Children's Hosptial.

@bpriller $3050 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: 2IdiotGamers

Start Time: Saturday, 8:00AM CST Nov 7

Your one stop shop for a video game marathon. He is raising money for the Ann & Robert H Lurie: Children's Hospital Of Chicago.

@utahpat $355 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Utahpat

Start Time: Saturday, 12:00AM MST Nov 7

This family will be playing a bunch of coop games like Tower Fall, Trine 2, Rocket League, Diablo etc. Since this is a family stream depending on who is playing you will also see adventure games, peggle, SOMA, and even MGS5 They are raising money for Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

@datarez

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: TMGTP

Start Time: Nov 14th

It is your destiny to watch this group of friends play through Destiny for Extra Life. Other games might appear as well. They are raising money for the Children's Hospital of St Louis.

@spotshadow $500 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: skeeball575

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7th

24 hours of video games does rock but as always these streams are about trying to help local kids that could use your donation. He is raising money for the KU Medical Center's Pediatric Unit.

@rasta_zergling $110 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: NKornek

Start Time: 12:00PM EST Saturday, Nov 7th

Rasta has the bright idea to play a bunch of complex games like Crusader Kings without any outside help. I'm sure that'll go over well. While watching his stream you could also donate to Operation Enfant Solei.

@jubjub677

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: JustinTime4Games

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

Looking to see some vidja games played on the internet then check out this live stream. He is raising money for the Children's Hospital Of St Louis.

@jordha

Twitch Link: Jordan Games

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

Do you love Pinball? Well Jordan does and he will be playing every pinball table within The Pinball Arcade for Extra Life. Although he doesn't want any donations and you should donate to team Giant Bomb if you enjoy his live stream.

Team Giant Bomb - Extra Life

@thelastgunslinger $450 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: LastGunslinger19

Start Time: Saturday, 7:00AM CST

In the mood to watch some newer games like Halo 5, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate or Destiny The Taken King then stop by this live stream. He is raising money for Penn State Hersey Children's Hospital.

@dinoracha $200 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Dinoracha

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

Who knows what this crew of duders will be playing for extra life. The only way to find out is to check out their live stream once it starts. They are raising money for Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation.

@captainkoonz $290 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: jpayneatl

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

I've already used up my one Destiny pun. Not sure if he is going to play anything else but if you want to see why Destiny is fun tune into this live stream. He is raising money for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

@upperdecker

Twitch Link: RogueOceanGaming

Start Time: Saturday, 6:00PM MST

3 days worth of streaming video games for charity. upperdecker himself goes into all the details in the comments. But to sum it up quickly GTAV running man challenge, Keep Talking And No One Explodes bomb defusal, a Civilization 5 Death match with @sparky_buzzsaw and a possible stream of something spooky.

@khetix $1200 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

khetix has returned for his 3rd year of extra life streams.This year he has had the great idea of letting the community dye his hair. He may have already met his goal but you can continue to donate to sway the color he will be stuck with for weeks. Other than his colorful hair you'll also see a bunch of video games played as well. He is raising money for Children's National.

@lemonadepack $445 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: DastardyDoWrong

Start Time: 2-3PM EST Nov 27

Lemonadepack did so well he is crazy enough to do another 24 hour EL marathon to raise even more. This time it's going to be 24 hours of Fallout 4. He is raising money for sick kids.

@messier $1215 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: TJWikinson

Start Time: Saturday, 8:00AM EST Nov 7

Destiny raids all day long along with some steam game giveaways and you can even win some Mets tickets. He is raising money for North Shore LIJ's Cohen Children's Medical Center.

@optix12 $116 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Hebrewjuice

Start Time: Saturday, 1:00AM GMT Nov 7

VIDEOGAMES!!! Plus he has some stream codes to give away too. He is raising money for Doernecher Children's Hospital Oregon.

@thouddin $145 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Thouddin

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

So many games to play so little time to play them. Good thing thouddin is doing a 24 hour EL stream. Raising money for Janet Weis Children's Hosptial.

@dannyhibiki $450 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: DannyHibiki

Start Time: Saturday, 6:00PM CST Nov 7

I'm not sure if your ready for all the anime games this stream will have. She is raising money for Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas.

@internetpizza $165 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: internetpizza

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

I'm not sure if anyone is ready to taste some internet pizza. But in case your interested in what he is dishing out then check out his live stream. He is raising money for Doernecher Children's Hospital Oregon.

@atreusmonk $305 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: AtreusMonk

Start Time: Saturday, 8:00AM CST Nov 7

List of games you'll see during this stream Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Ori and the Blind Forest, Invisible, Inc., Massive Chalice, FTL: Faster Than Light, and Unrest. Everyone who donates at least $5 can win prizes like a $25 Amazon. He is raising money for Arkansas Children's Hospital.

@tariqari $115 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: tariqari

Start Time: Saturday, 9:00AM Nov 7

Enter the realm of Morrowind for a while in this live stream. If he gets enough duders to join in you could also see games like L4D2, portal 2 or Don't Starve. Moviebattles II, Bastion and Fallout will also be some other games you'll see when tuning into this stream. Raising money for University of Vermont Children's Hospital.

@bahamut_mega $148 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Youtube Link: GE-MA Transmission Station

Start Time: Saturday, 8:00AM PST Nov 7

This numbers station doesn't just send out streams of spooky sounding numbers. Tune in to watch some video games like Until Dawn or Disgaea 5. You could win a $50 gift card if you donate to Children's Hospital Of Los Angeles.

@esrever

Twitch Link: The_Macechist

Esrever is still in the planning stages but if your in the mood for speed runs of Mirror's Edge, Toren, Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood and Malicous then tune into this live stream. But the main event will be Mario Maker and fighting games like Guilty Gear Xrd.

@historyinrust $275 Raised

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Inevpatroria

Start Time: Saturday, 12:00PM CST Nov 7

Historyinrust is going all in with his Extra Life stream. For the first $200 dollars he will match it to make the total amount raised for Children's Hospital & Medical Center $400 dollars. Donate if you can and enjoy all the video games he will be playing.

@endoworks $525 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: endoworks

Start Time: Saturday, Nov 7

This is the third year endoworks has been playing in support of Riley for Extra Life. Tune into this stream to watch some video games.

@nbz

Twitch Link: lorddbz

Start Time: Nov 7

@outbr3ak $260 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: WhiskeyFueledGames

Start Time: Nov 7

@cadwr $1066 Rasied

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: Cadwr0

Start Time: Saturday, 7:00AM EST Nov 7

@eurick

Donation Link: Extra Life

Twitch Link: PlaidYeti

Start Time: 9:00AM CST Nov 14th

This group of friends has a wide selection of games they plan on live streaming. It'll be a tightly packed schedule so you'll always see something new no matter when you tune in. They are raising money for the Children's Hospital Of Wisconsin.

Well I think that is everyone. Hopefully this helps anyone that would like to have a quick way to glance over every single Extra Life stream.

Up to this point I haven't picked up very many Persona collectibles even after becoming a fan for life after playing Persona 3. Turns out I just needed someone to go with a highly detailed chibi style. This Aigis figure seems really unique compared to most chibi figures thanks to the height alone.

Maybe I'm just suspicious of photos posted online but I was wondering if this figure would have just as many details as the one posted. Turns out Phat! did a great job and it met my expectations.

This box would actually be a great way to display Aigis. Especially with the correct lighting like the previous picture shows. But I've never been one to keep anything in a box.

Up to this point I didn't really like figures with joints when they were supposed to be human. But it fits in perfectly with Aigis since she is a robot with a lot of heart.

Overall Aigis turned out to be a pretty awesome figure. Definitely worth the purchase if you like Persona 3 like me. Now I'm just worried I'm going to pick up even more of these. Labyrs is the next one coming out...