Link Out (13/4/08)

April 12th, 2008

lik out metal gear snake grey

To talk slightly off topic for a moment, I must say that in the past week or so I have been in a consistently chirpy mood and as such I would like bring forward this month’s Link Out post and share that happiness.

This happiness is in due part to my University 2 week break which starts Monday, completing a Chinese test and of course and the steady maintenance of this site. These are all great contributors but it is two other events in the recent days that have really made my day. Firstly I have been offered a $5000 scholarship and an additional $1000 travel grant from my University to study in ShangHai (China) from September to January this year. Secondly some of my recent articles, namely the Morgan Webb article has been receiving numerous trackbacks from sites like Shack News and GameSetWatch and as such my traffic has seen another large jump. Actually I am quite pleased about the GameSetWatch link out because I have much respect for that blog and it’s main site; Gamasutra. It reconfirms to me that my writing is on the right track.

So I figured that in my time of great happiness I would share the love and disperse another round of recommended readings for the month. So here are some of the links that I have been keeping in cold storage in the recent weeks.

MIT’s Jenkins On Gamers, Youth Culture, Brother Leeroy - GameSetWatch

Henry Jenkins is a professor over at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) he specializes in cultural convergence, learning through digital media and related fields. He is a leading researcher in under these fields and created many of the terms and concepts. This article outlines one of his recent key notes as well as some questions at the end. An incredibly interesting read.

Incredible Metal Gear Solid 3 Photo Captures

You remember the camera feature in the Metal Gear Solid games? Well take a look at some of these incredible images that this Japanese guy captured. You wonder how people figure these things out.

WAZ – Bruce on Games

Bruce Everiss brings to light something which should be a reference point for us gamers on the issue of video game violence. WAZ is another one of those disgusting torture porn flicks which appear to be filling new releases rental shelves everywhere. The point he raised was that the British Government recently provided a fund of a million pounds for the release of this movie yet contrast this against the rough time that ManHunt 2 has been getting in Europe.

Metroid 2 16Bit Remake

Another fan remake of a classic gaming title. This time its Metroid 2: Return of Samus being remade into 16bit. Unlike some of the previous fan remakes (OOT 2D, Metroid Prime 2D, Final Fantasy VII 2D, the list goes on) this one is actually might just get finished, well heres hoping. The blog proves to be quite resourceful on the remake and there is a downloadable demo as well.

Legend of Zelda 4 Swords – 5 Gamecubes, 5 TVs - Retro Gaming with RacketBoy

Back in the time of GBA/GCN connectivity and 8 player LAN Mario Kart my friends and I were always keen to test out these new play experiences. This article is a throwback to that sort of gaming culture. As the title states fastbilly1 and some of the community members over at Retro Gaming with RacketBoy strung together a series of 5 Gamecubes (4x utilizing GB Players) with 5 TVs each with a copy of Zelda 4 Swords Adventures (4 players + one main TV). The stuff of legends, there are images and video inside so take a look.

Bangai-O Spirits Critique - Action Button

While doing some random blog surfing I was directed to this site which provides some interesting game critique. I started reading this review of Treasure’s new Bangai-O Spirits for the DS and I was instantly grabbed by the linguistic rhythm of this writer. So I figured you might be too.

The 99% Completion Rate

February 6th, 2008

dkc completition rate

Just recently my brother and I finished the original Donkey Kong Country on the SNES for the third or fourth time. We figured that unlike our previous play throughs when we were kids that we’d try to 100% complete the game. This is something that if possible I try to do for all of my games; 100% finish it, cross it off the list, shelve it.

On last run through we clocked up roughly a 78% completion rate. No troubles, we were all to happy to finish every level again for the 3rd or 4th time so that we can chalk this one up at 100%.

Now in order to finish the original DKC you need to find all of the hidden Bonus Barrels in each stage. So we tried again, this time on the look out for those bonus barrels. On the second run thru we finished up with a 92% completion rate. Good but still not 100% so after so quarreling we decided to run through DKC for a third time but this time with guide in hand.

About now I should probably note that unlike the other Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land games the original game never told you if you had collected all bonuses per each level. There was no exclamation mark or DK logo to help you. So there was no way on knowing which stages we hadn’t found the Bonus barrels in.

So with guide in hand we set out to shelve this game for good. So we followed the guide and went through every level again, occasionally finding the cheaply hidden barrel down a slightly obscured pitfall. Once we hit the final level (actually the first level as we worked out way backwards) we unfortunately had the painful realization of a 99% completion rate.

The 99% Completion Rate

This hasn’t been the first time that I have been slammed with a not quite completed game file. I seem to be suffering the same curse with the Metroid Prime series:

Metroid Prime – 98%
Metroid Prime 2 – 99%
Metroid Prime 3- who knows?

What do You do About the 99% Completion Rate?

Usually when I run into this problem I don’t let that little 1% push me around, I just stick it on the shelve and cross it off the list. Sometimes I play through the game again but only if I had originally planned on doing so.

So what about you guys, what do you when this happens to you? Drop me a comment or vote in our site poll to let me know that you think?

Posted in General Gaming | Comments (5)
Tags: , donkey kong, game completition, metroid

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The 99% Completion Rate

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