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Video_Game_King

So is my status going to update soon, or will it pretend that my Twitter account hasn't existed for about a month?

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Wait, I'm doing Neo Geo games now? Since when?

By Video_Game_King 30 Comments


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Garou: Mark of the Wolves

( Finally, I'm back to normal.) No more modern games or free advergames or whatever; just old school games. However, for returning to the familiar, I am doing something new: blogging about Neo Geo games. Two reasons for this: I've finally figured out how to get the damn things working, and I love SNK. Why? Well, aside from being the prophets of the awesome (you know, Seisen no Keifu), they just make a ton of cool games. Granted, I haven't played a lot of them (Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, Ikari Warriors), but the ones I have played (Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade, Metal Slug) are pretty great. Wait, I played Garou: Mark of the Wolves? Normally, this would be the part where I insinuate that the game is crap, but I can't. Garou is good.
 
But remember my Braid blog, where I said that Baird is the one game that gives me oddly specific dyslexia? I lied, apparently, because I remembered Garou: Mask of the Wolves. These are the only two games that do this, unless there are others that also do this. Garou is weird about it, though, since I didn't see many marks, masks, or wolves, meaning no garous. So what is this game about? Well, consider it a sequel to Fatal Fury The-Last-Number; Howard Geese is dead, leaving a major power gap in the city. His...brother-in-law, Kain, decides to fill the gap...by holding an oddly small (not counting the two bosses at the end, you fight six dudes) fighting tournament to find the strongest person in the city. (Oh, and I might as well say it now: I don't know what the city is called. They never tell you.) Obviously, he's more than capable of creating this tournament, so why can't he run the city? What's that? A right-hand man? He already has one that you need to fight to get to him. Kain also says some crap about ridding the city of decadence by killing the weak, probably because he never watched Schindler's List.  I'd say that SNK didn't think this story through, but something about that feels....off, like how the dialogue feels....off. Maybe it's the elaborately animated cutscenes, or the alternate endings abound (even if they use the same format), but the story doesn't feel phoned in.
 
 I have other pictures of this guy; they only confirm that he hates gay people.
 I have other pictures of this guy; they only confirm that he hates gay people.
Then again, the characters do feel phoned in, kinda. You have a Capcomy character, a Guilty Geary character, a Samurai Shodowny character, and a Fatal Fury...uh...y character. (Oh, just let me ask this now: why is Terry's voice the only English one if he still has a Japanese accent?) I'd like to say that they're not that phoned in with the moves, but look at the TOP stuff and the special moves; they're all the same. Except Rock Howard; apparently, he hates you and everything you stand for. Then again, each character is mostly unique, serving their own purpose (the Kims kick, Zangief is a bird, Hotaru appeals to me, etc.), so maybe those overlapping things are just there to make the game easier to get into. Yea, I'll go with that: the game's really easy to get into. After all, all of its twists on the fighting game formula are pretty easy to grasp. I'd say that the bar at the bottom of the screen is a cool twist, but it isn't. It's just the regular "fill me up to kill your opponents" affair, only now, you can fill it up twice, if you want your opponent to double die. Have you ever seen somebody double die? It's a greater terror than most men will ever know. 
 
Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right: the cool features. Remember when I mentioned TOP? You're probably wondering what that is. At the beginning of each story mode, you choose a third of the bar: the top third if you're an egotist, the middle if you're normal, or the bottom because you thought it was the top, underlining just how much you suck at Garou. When you enter that portion of the bar, you start flashing a bit, you regenerate some health on a regular basis, and you get a new move. I realize that this sounds simple, but it actually adds a new level of strategy to the game. Do you blow it all at the beginning, or save that sliver of health for when you're getting your ass kicked? The only problem with this is that there is no strategy for the final boss; he gets a TOP bar that's thrice the size of a regular one. Do the math. Only now do you realize just how cheap he is. Oh, and as a final insult, when you get to play as him (by going as far right as possible, and then pressing right), he sucks! All of his moves are charge ones, meaning you have to crouch for a few seconds before coming back with a Super Mario Bros 2 super kick. I don't see that asshole walking backwards for nine seconds to pull off his "Terry Bogard, but a villain" moves, so what the hell?
 
 No, you don't understand; he really hates gay people.
 No, you don't understand; he really hates gay people.
What I do see him doing a lot is Just Defending. What the hell is Just Defending? Remember that part that I crossed out earlier? If you don't, I don't see why the hell not; it stands out stupidly well, especially since only a few people on the site know how to do it. But anyway, Just Defending is just like whatever-the-hell-the-Street-Fighter-III-equivalent-was-called or Samurai Shodown II's parry system that you didn't know it had: if you time your block right, not only do you take no damage whatsoever, but you also get a perfect opportunity to counter attack. If you just don't defend quick enough, you still block, but get a bit of chip damage. It's kind of like SNK decided that instead of eliminating chip damage altogether, they'd just introduce a system that would allow them to write it off as a lack of skill. That's probably why I don't like the system as much as I should: I suck at the game. The only reason I even knew that Grant wasn't the final boss is because the grading system is fucked. Besides, even if I was awesome at the game, there's still one slightly major issue: balance.
 
OK, so it's not as bad as I'm going to make it out to be, but the difficulty from character to character varies quite a bit. Hokutomaru can probably do really well against somebody who spends a lot of time in the air, but against somebody like Tizoc or Hotaru? The little bastard's gonna get screwed pretty hard. It doesn't help that like the first two Samurai Shodown games (I haven't spent enough time with the third to say anything about it), the hit detection can be a bit wonky, especially when you're close enough to your opponent that an awkward boner would count as sex. Imagine it: you're right next to your opponent, and you see this elaborate animation of your character arcing right over their intended target. Wait.....fuck! I forgot to mention the graphics. Well, this isn't going to end up like my Barid blog, where I forgot to mention such a major feature. I'm going to tell you that the graphics are awesome. I know that it doesn't come across in the pictures I posted, but there's a ridiculously high level of detail in everything, especially the animations. Most of the cutscenes look so much like they were ripped from a disc-based game that they make you forget that the Neo Geo reached its sound limitations about four years prior. I'm not calling the music shit, but go back to the song du blog. Look at the title. Look at it carefully. Only now do you understand. But again, I'm not calling the game bad. I'd call it the poor man's Street Fighter III, but given that Keith Apicary had to mortgage his house to buy a Neo Geo, I'm just going to call Street Fighter III the poor man's Garou. Then again, when you consider the fact that only a few characters are from Fatal Fury, it really is just SNK's answer to Street Fighter III. So what award do I give it? Uh....maybe just the SNK's Answer to Street Fighter III Award? Yea, that works.

Also, I give Kim Dong Hwan the Most Homophobic Character Award (wait, the character named after a dick is homophobic? Were the writers even paying attention?), and Khushnood Butt the Most Badass Fighting Game Character Award. This isn't because he's black, you racist (although given his moveset, the idea of a black Ryu does sound kinda bitchin'), or his vaguely awesome first name, or how his awesomeness distorts the very fabric of reality in ways you can't comprehend. All I need to say is that this guy trains bears in the art of karate. Try to think of something more badass; your brain will turn into a karate bear, because explosions wouldn't do that justice. Not even his enemy spouting the phrase "vagina wet", like a horny two year old, is as badass as a karate bear; not even a horny two year old can live up to that awesomeness. Khushnood Butt is a man so badass that he has found a way to make bears deadlier. This is so badass that there's a good chance that such a beast could defeat Vin Diesel's ass itself. Hmmm....I wonder....

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Review Synopsis

  • Even if the cast isn't well balanced, there's still enough variety in the roster to keep things fun.
  • Just Defend isn't that good if you suck at fighting games.
  • Holy shit, this game looks awesome!
 
 
 
 
 
At first, this video looks like something that's incredibly racist, yet somewhat confusing. However, things become clear at the 30 second mark: this man is INSANE. He thinks that Jewish people don't sleep and believes that you love mutilated baby pets. That look on his face not only confirms that he's a man of his word, but also that he will not take no for an answer.
  
  

Dead Moon

( My, my, what a misleading title.) The Moon is not, in any way, dead. Lunar society has been a thriving one for hundreds of years, especially after the Unification of the Kingdoms back in 1933. This game, an obscure shooter for the TurboGrafx-16 made long ago, is nothing more than pure anti-Lunarian propaganda! LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS UNITED LUNAR KINGDOMS OF SENASTIA! ALL THE IMPURE WHO OPPOSE ITS MIGHTY WILL SHALL BE CRUSHED BY ITS GREAT MILITARY POWER!!!
 
I'm sorry; I'm getting ahead of myself, so allow to explain my case. The game begins with Earth finally developing easy space travel, setting (at least for me) a somewhat optimistic tone. However, shit goes down the shit receptacle (you humans and your primitive toilets; up here, we have butt portals) when humans discover a meteor or whatever that's hurtling toward their planet. The odd thing is that it only decides to kill humanity when it figures out that humanity's a thing, so points to it. I'm taking those points away from humanity five times over, because their response is to send that thing straight into the Moon. FUCK. YOU. ALWAYS. However, this is where Dead Moon becomes a dark piece of anti-Lunarian propaganda. After the meteor crashes into the Moon, a bevy of evil aliens flow forth from the Moon. I know what you're thinking: it's the meteor that created the aliens, right? However, the game states, in no unclear terms, that these aliens have always been in the Moon. At least they got that part right; for many a year, that thing you know as the "moon" was just a shield meant to keep you out. However, we are NOT hellish aliens who wantonly destroy all in their path just for the sake of chaos. We are also not undead beings that kill with the power of magic. Look at that: Dead Moon thinks I'm both undead and a robot. Which is it? You can't have both. You're the Jiggle Billy of games.
 
 I've said it before, but I'll say it again: FUCK. YOU. DEAD. MOON.
 I've said it before, but I'll say it again: FUCK. YOU. DEAD. MOON.
Of course, all of what I just said only applies to the story part of the game. The oddly well thought out story part of the game. Anyway, what about the actual game parts of the game? There's not much I can say about it other than it's a standard shooter. I know that I use this a lot, but holy shit, does Dead Moon fit that trope perfectly. Pretty much all six levels of the game follow a very specific formula: shoot enemies for a bit, two mini-bosses, shoot more enemies for a bit, big bad Lunar boss (again, FUCK YOU, DEAD MOON), and repeat for about five or six levels. Then repeat it again, with a harder difficulty, only without the minimal reward that something like Ghosts 'n Goblins has.  Oh, and don't think that the levels are creative within that formula (although I must admit that the levels look cool, especially with parallax scrolling and such); all the enemies come out you in predictable formations, like "two lines" and "we just figured out what the COS button does on my graphing calculator."  The only creative parts of the game are the boss battles. And by that, I mean "you can face right and left."
 
Wait, I forgot to mention the power-ups. You know, the backbone of almost every shooter in existence. Going with that statement, Dead Moon's spine is made out of plastic: only somewhat strong, but easy as shit (we all know how easy shit is) to break. You get four power-ups: a green wave, some blue lasers, red circles, yellow bullets, hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons, pots of gold, and rainbows, and red balloons. Wait, those last ones were just cereal ingredients, so they're gone. And I guess the circles and the bullets are essentially the same, so they're combined, too. So that leaves you with just three weapons, which devolves to two when the blue weapon reaches it highest form: the green's highest form, only with lasers instead of waves. So now you have a good reason to avoid this game. Wait, what's that? Multiple weapon levels? Oh, yea, that. Well, weapons get more powerful the more you collect them, obviously. This only applies to getting the same weapon; get a different weapon, and you get the same-powered different weapon. The only major twist to the formula is that your weapon levels essentially act like your health......Shit. I really don't have any complaints for that. It's one thing this game got right, which is oddly the one thing that a lot of other shooters got wrong. *glares menacingly at Phalanx* In fact, it's probably the only major thing that this propaganda gets right. Not to say that the rest of it suck;s as I said before, it's formulaic. And propagandic. That's why I give it the Xenophobia+Authority=18 Million Dead Europeans Award. I think I got a Nazi joke in every part of this blog. Awesome? I don't know.
 

Review Synopsis

  • Fuck.
  • Dead.
  • Moon.

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