Link Out (12/2/08)
February 11th, 2008
Its been over a month since my last Link Out. I might try and make this segment a monthly segment as it will allow me to build up a stronger list of better links. For those who have just joined us in the past month, this segment is where I share the love and post up links to my favourite, recent articles circulating the internet. Think of it as a form of supplementary readings with my tick of recommendation.
I think that I have found a great assortment this month. Here we go:
I linked to this site in my Totally Rad Retro Video Review but I want to mention it again. This site basically compares the difference between the NES gameTotally Rad and it’s original Japanese version; Magic John. Magic John was ‘Amercanized’ for its western release, so its interesting to draw the comparisons.
The Best Old-School Games of 2007 – Retro Gaming with RacketBoy
RacketBoy looks over this user selected list of the best retro games of 2007. It reminds me of what a great year 2007 was for games be it new, old, remade or compilated. Theres also a number of those fan service games from 2007 that I was talking about previously.
Wrecking Crew Retro Review – The BBPS
I was planning on doing a retro review on this game a while ago. But I don’t think that I will now, I’ve already shared my thoughts on the game and will be covering it in other ways in future. So in it’s place, I post this link.
Turok 2 Retro Review – VideoGames Blogger
Another game that Matty Jay and I wanted to put up for review. Well you can basically scrap that idea as astrotriforce from Video Games Blogger posted up this downright excellent review of the game. It covers everything that I wish I had time to write about. Excellent review.
Metal Slug Not Really in HD – 8 Bit Joystick
Yeah, some of these links are pretty old, I remember reading this one ages ago. Still a good read on something that I was unsure about
The Simpsons Game Cutscenes – Siliconera
Like a lot of people I’m not interested in forking out full price to buy The Simpsons Game just to wade through some meh gameplay to get to the cutscenes. Luckily Siliconera found someone whom has kindy ripped the cutscenes from the game.
The Wii’s Success: It’s time for developers to put up or shut up – Infendo
One of the best, hard hitting articles that I have read for some time. Really lays the smack down on whinging third parties. There’s a couple of minor points in the article that I do disagree with but overall Infendo nail this one.
Seven Ways to Make Money Gaming
I love games and I need money to keep that love alive. Fortunately I can combine the two. Keira from Write the Game runs thru seven of the best ways to make the cash.
Earthbound Calendar Is A Ness-essity – Press the Buttons
Even though Nintendo still continue to withhold the EarthBound series from us singlet wearing Australians, I still have a distant love for Earthbound (ah yes, ‘scratch and sniff’). Matty G posted up some great calender images based on the series. I originally wasn’t sure if I was going to post this, as the lame pun in the title was giving me second thoughts. ^_^
Images that Defined Gaming – Vertical Gaming
February 8th, 2008
Images that Defined Gaming is a featured series showcasing the various images that changed the way we thought about gaming, the characters and franchises within it. To view more entries in this series click here.
Theres been a bit of fuss lately about gaming monitors, a few weeks back we saw images of the awesome AlienWare curved monitor and many months ago I posted up a screenshot of this new ‘Surround Gaming’ phenomena. Sure, these monitors definitely look awesome but they’re not quite as awesome as vertical gaming:
Vertical gaming is just as it sounds; video games played vertically instead of in your typical horizontal fashion. One genre that works brilliantly in a vertical perspective is the shoot-em up genre.
Not surprisingly there aren’t a lot of games that support vertical play. The only one that I am familiar with is the legendary Ikaruga (pictured) on the Dreamcast and Gamecube.
You’re probably wondering why someone would go to the trouble of buying a vertical only television or monitor just to play one game. Sure its great for shoot em ups but its not like every monitor is built vertically, they’d be difficult to find and probably quite expensive, right? Actually, quite a few new computer monitors (such as my Dell monitor) can actually be rotated 90 degrees so that they can viewed vertically (for photos and such). So it might surprise you how accessible this phenomena actually is.
If you are interested in trying this out and have a TV or monitor that you think might be rotatable then I have two pieces of advice. Firstly check the product information before you try and move anything because sometimes you can only rotate the base one way. Which leads me to the second point if you can only rotate your TV anti clockwise then I’d probably forget about Ikaruga (once again not sure about other titles). Unfortunately as a result Ikaruga will be displayed upside down and there is no option to change it. You can’t flip the picture in the game’s options hence you might be forced to play upside down. I have heard that they’ll be fixing this for the new Ikargua HD on Xbox Live Arcade though.
I ran into the second problem myself and decided to unscrew my base and flip the rotation plate. Which worked but this isn’t recommended.
Playing Ikaruga vertically is like a dream, I’m only new to shmps but I love not having the huge ugly bars in the horizontal mode. I set the display so that there is only very small bars on the top and bottom. The game is stretched out to high definition too. Its been very exciting so far so I want to following this up with some impressions of the game next time.
The 99% Completion Rate
February 6th, 2008
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?
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