I seem to have a reoccurring trend in my life… I go and download massive amounts of old roms, then I end up running out to game stores and buying the actual games. This happened to me, once upon a time, with Metal Gear Solid for the Game Boy Color. I know what you’re thinking… “Tom!!! This is Metal Gear!! This isn’t some pansy-ass platformer for whiny toddlers sitting in a doctors office!! How could they not fuck this up?!?“. And I completely agree.

How could they put Metal Gear on the Game Boy and expect anything more than complete and utter failure? But… somehow… It wasn’t shit.. As a matter of fact, it was pretty good, but not just good. It was great. Not the best game I’ve ever played, but it felt like Metal Gear. From the tension you feel as a guard stares at your hobo-style-camo, to the joyful glee you feel as you knock on a wall to lead a guard in the wrong direction. This is Metal Gear in your pocket.

From a pure story perspective: Standard Kojima Fare. Convoluted, hard-hitting, long-winded monologues, a dramatic score. Classic Metal Gear storytelling.

From the story to the gameplay, this game does justice to the series in every fashion. If you’re a Metal Gear fan who needs their fix on the go, this is your game.

Game Boy Color – Metal Gear Solid

This man is made of green balls of steel, oh by the way read the bottom left of the case. If you were a bad enough dude to beat this game in 1995 you could have won 25 thousand dollars, which I assume would be used to purchase a bunch of trash bags and save the world like Vectorman would have wanted.

Alright back story for our hero Vectorman. In 2049 earth was full of so much random ass trash because of us humans that we decided to try and go to other planets to live their permanently. While doing so we we left a bunch of “orbots” to clean up our mess that we had created stemming from humans being massive dicks and not caring what we pollute. Now for the villain…there was a big orbot that took care of the operation by watching over everything and his name was Raster. Raster somehow through another orbot, got connected to a nuclear warhead and slowly drove himself insane, and tries to become a dictator kinda like Castro, and changes his name to the more appropriate Warhead. Mind you he does this while the humans are gone, so he plans on committing genocide on all of them when they decide to return back…so technically Warhead is more Adolf Hitler, than Fidel Castro. Vectorman being away during all of this while taking sludge to the Sun, comes back and realizes that every orbot is now being controlled by Warhead and he does not want to comply. Vectorman takes it upon himself to tell Warhead to shove it up his ass and save the earth…while still apparently doing menial orbot slave clean up duties.

Pictured the robotic equivilent of Adolf Hitler.

I will give them credit, they came up with something original which I applaud them for and it’s not some cute bullshit story either. It equates to the fact that the world is full of people that trash whatever they want, and then it punches you in the face with robotic genocide. As far as this game is concerned its best thing by far is the graphics. The graphics were done in a pre-rendered style which was capable of making the games look like they were going far past the limits of the system, Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct also did this for their games.  Every single thing in this game is pretty, yes graphics at the time were not so great at the time this game was released, think about it Starfox’s graphics were said to have been top notch when they came out so compared to that game this game is nothing short of beautiful. The animation with the characters is perfect, the way they react is the way they should and looks just like how the reaction would actually be if somehow this were to have actually happened. Throughout the entire experience this game maintains a steady 60 frames per second I shit you not.The backgrounds are very artistic and look post apocalyptic and yes I know technically the apocalypse has not happened in the story, but when robots are willing to kill everyone/thing on earth I am pretty sure this is how shit would go down as far as looks are concerned.

This game controls amazingly, and Blue Sky really tried to test the limits of the Genesis and they did a damn good job. I rarely have a review where I will not go into controls too much, but honestly the game is damn near perfect for the kind of game it is so I have nothing more to add to it. The difficulty on this game is legendary. If you know anyone who has played this you will have no trouble hearing a good lashing out about how this game tries to tear your soul apart. Each stage has a crazy ass amount of enemies that you must mow down to get to the bosses and even when you manage to do that the bosses don’t fuck around either. If you get the chance I suggest looking up the random bosses due to the sweet names and design they have, such as Clockwork a robot with gears that spits random shit at you. They do have three different type of difficulty levels which are “Lame, Wicked, and Insane”. If you play on lame you will get alot of lives and a shit ton more health, compared to the other two and honestly you might as well play on Lame so you can enjoy the game even more because odds are you will still have your ass handed to you on a silver platter. This is one of the harder games for the Genesis and after a minute of playing you will completely understand what I mean by that statement. If you do find it too difficult then just pause the game and hit “C, A, Left, Left, A, C, A, B” which spells out “Call A Cab” and you can zip right to the boss of a stage. The one gripe I have with the game is the soundtrack which most of it sucks if your going to do a techno soundtrack you better hire Yuzo Koshiro of Streets of Rage fame. To this day this game is one of my personal favorites for the Genesis.

Who would have thought that Sega would try to make a sequel to this for the Playstation 2 a few years after Blue Sky shutdown, only to pull the product because the fans were super pissed that it was a third person shooter instead of the standard game they were used to from Vectorman 1 and 2. They also changed his looks to be more appealing…so they made him Master Chief. I swear if Sega had allowed that to be made I probably would not be writing about how badass the Genesis is constantly due to the amount of hatred I would have boiling in my blood.

Honestly Sega…what the fuck.

If you like games that have a different feel and story to them then this one is for you, to me its what would happen if you combined 1984 and a robotic apocalypse together. If you have never played this game then you need to get the rom from here because you will not be disappointed in the least. This game has a 91 percent rating of approval across the Internet, and if the Internet likes it can it really be that bad?

vectorman-f

Pure Fucking Awesome.

OK I really don’t need to tell you about this game but fuck it that’s what I’m here for. I am a huge fan of the entire series, but hands down this is to me better than one, three and even Sonic and Knuckles (although combining Sonic 2 and Sonic and Knuckles is awesome and I shall discuss that in a bit). Sega took their sweet ass time making this game what it is so first off I will discuss the graphics. God damn….there may not be a prettier game on the Genesis they did everything they could and tested its limits just to put this game to the max and wow they did a great job on it. Every single pixel and character is remarkable its crazy to think how well they were able to pull this off. This game still makes my jaw drop during certain stages because of how pretty it is.

Chemical Plant Zone….Awesome.

Next is the music….holy shit….this music is awesome. There is not one single piece of bad music through out this entire game and if you think there is then you must be a bitch because only a bitch could make a conclusion of that sort. I mean just to name a few but metropolis zone and casino night zone are probably the two best in the entire game. They even have new original bonus stages which if you play as sonic and tails tails can help you gather rings and at the same time lose them if he fucks up and gets hit by a bomb. As far as controls go this game is perfect there is nothing wrong with the controls at all and honestly you can just tell that Sega was not going to push out a shit product they really wanted this game to be the real deal. Now for the final aspect the difficulty. Me being the avid old gamer I am there are very few older games that I have yet to beat but by god this is one of them. This game is hard as hell, and will push you to your limits unless you brought your A game. Mind you this game is not as hard as Battletoads but it is hard if I could compare it to any game id have to compare it to Mario 3 on difficulty but think about it Mario 3 there are a lot more levels, but at times Sonic can be just as difficult.

Another great aspect about this game is the fact that you can choose who you want to play as weather it be Sonic and Tails, or either of them separate and hell if you play as both together someone can use the second controller to control Tails and that can be a great thing. I will say this if your going to use one character by it’s self use tails he can fly and that makes a lot of shit easier to gather when you are really searching for a few extra rings or even if your just searching for another extra life to keep you going for a few more levels. Tails has fallen from grace but there was a point where he was not a 6 year old pussy trapped in a fox’s body. The best part about this game is the fact that in 1994 when Sonic and Knuckles was released you could play Sonic 2 as the baddest motherfucker in the Sonic universe Knuckles. Mind you he cannot fly but when you can glide through half a stage based off the fact that you are amazing then fuck it who cares about flying gliding can be just as good…oh did I also mention the bastard can climb walls? Oh I didn’t? Well he can climb walls like its no problem. His glide can also work as an attack have you ever been flying as Tails and hit Robotnik (Fuck Eggman, that’s not in this country until later) no you haven’t and do you know why? Because Tails is not nearly as cool as Knuckles.

Just look at how badass Knuckles is, Tails does not have shit on him.

This is one of my favorite games of all time, mind you is it my favorite no it isn’t but it is up there because nostalgia, how amazing the graphics are, how amazing the music is, and just how great the overall experience is. I have the sonic mega collection for my ps2 and hell I have all the games for my Genesis and I will still play this one from time to time just to remember the good old days, I just hope soon enough I can take the time to beat it. If you get the opportunity to play this you better or otherwise your missing out on one of the best games ever made.

Sega Genesis – Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sega Genesis – Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – With Knuckles

Before we begin… I know we’ve already got a small review up for Link’s Awakening. But I feel that the post was more Battletunes oriented and presented only a brief overview of the game. Not to discredit that review, but this is a more in depth look at the story and design aspects of the game.

Zelda games have always rang true with me. An overall amazing series, and most of the games are pure gold (most! Phantom Hourglass can suck a dick). It happens to be my favorite series in all of gaming. I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time in each version of Hyrule, battling skultullas and rescuing Zelda for the millionth time, it never truly got old. But the game I’ve put the most amount of time into has to be Link’s Awakening.

I was a huge fan of A Link to the Past when it came out, and this game helped me rekindle all of those warm feelings all over again. Link’s Awakening is a Zelda game through and through, you’ll find familiar puzzles, enemies, tunes, items, and scenarios. But what turns this Zelda game into something special is the story and presentation of the whole thing. Its difficult to make a Game Boy game seem epic… You’ve got 4 shades of grey, a small screen, and very limited sound capability to play around with, but somehow, they did it. Instead of taking place in the Land of Hyrule, Link’s Awakening takes place in Koholint Island, a completely new world, completely separated from Hyrule. This gave the designers enough of a push to make a truly unique story. (Yarr… there be spoilers ahead!!)

Here’s a video with one of my favorite video game tunes of all time: The Ballad of the Wind Fish

Thanks to omdac714 for the video!

Koholint Island doesn’t exist. Its all a dream world. The world exists in the dream of a sleeping creature called The Wind Fish. If the Wind Fish is awoken, Koholint Island, all the creatures, and all of the people contained within will disappear with the dream. This creates an interesting philosophical scenario. Is is morally right to wake the dreamer, escaping the dreamland, only to watch everyone you’ve met so far disappear right before your very eyes? Are the enemies really all that evil, trying to stop you from destroying the only world they’ve ever known? Are you even the hero of this story? Or do you merely server as a means to an end of the world? Though the game never directly brings up these questions, it does make for an amazing catalyst into moral and philosophical discussion. At one point, when you defeat a boss, the dying enemy begs you not to wake the Wind Fish, as his entire world will disappear. Its this writing, this kind of storytelling that separate this Zelda game from all the rest, and more importantly, this Game Boy game from all the rest. Give it a try, one of my favorite games of all time:

Game Boy – The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

What a wonderful staple of my childhood. The first time I ever had the chance to play SMW was at a Big Bear. Yeah, remember that grocery store chain that bit the dust years ago? They had a SNES in a little section for parents to drop their kids off when they drove them crazy (I fell fittingly into this category). Being a Sega child, I only had a couple friends who owned a Super Nintendo so I clung to that SNES at Big Bear. Kids wanting their turn got the silent treatment because there was no way I was letting go. Normally, I wasn’t that kid… but this was Super Fuckin’ Mario Fuckin’ World. 

Christmas united me with this classic thanks to the glory of the Virtual Console. I purchased this and Donkey Kong Country 2 (which Chad should probably review before I get to it first… duh duh DUUUUUUUH!).

Where to begin… SMW was the pinnacle  of the 2D Mario experience on the old school console. Yoshi came onto the scene, control over flight became amiable with the cape, not to mention you get to rehash the joy of decimating the Koopa Kids. Fuck those little bastards… literally, they’re bastards. Where’s the mother? Bowser would be a horrible father and an even worse single father. The only logical explanation is that Bowser got that Peach punanny on 8 occasions. What a whore.

See, total whore.

How do you think she can pull all of those turnips out of her dress? You guessed right, she’s got a gaping vagine… it looks like a pink hot tub…

Getting sidetracked…

SMW excelled at making cool looking environments

Welcome to Dinosaur Island. Those numbers you see are the rubble of castles guarded by a Koopa Kid. Your mission is to save the stolen Yoshis from these castles. Technically, you can beat the game without doing all that but then you’d be a pussy. Either that or you’re going for a speed run, then I guess I can understand that… IF you beat the world record.

For those who like a little spook every once in awhile in their adventure, there are also Ghost Houses along the way.

Home of the Boo in varied forms:

If you’ve never had to deal with a Boo, it’s quite simple. Just look at them and they quit moving. Either out of fear or shyness… the irony is palpable. Sometimes this tactic doesn’t work, hope you’re good at dodging.

Super Mario World is a KEY game for any avid gamer. It’s a classic that I still hear talk of to this day. I have never heard an ill word said in regard to it and probably never will. I’d assume the only people who don’t have good things to say about it didn’t make it through. Which is sad because the boss battle with Bowser is one of the most entertaining battles I’ve been a part of. It’s just fun, and you get to crack Bowser on the head with Mechakoopas! How does that not spell out fun!?

All of the boss battles are fun, not that I think about it.

If you haven’t played it. If you have, play it again and smile constantly.

SNES – Super Mario World

Seventy Two Pin Connector Podcast – Episode 027 – We’re Back (But Not As Dinosaurs)

Believe it or not, we’re not dead, we took a break there for the holidays, parties, and other things that mark the occasion of the winter season. But tomorrow night you can expect us in full glory, live on UStream, back at it with our roundup of 2008! Stay tuned!

Yep! Here it is… now, before you give this podcast a listen, there is something you gotta know first. We knew, going into this week, that our recordings were going to be immature, childish, dirty-humored, terrible examples of culture, but they were going to be funny. This podcast, and the next minicast we release are all about being funny, hilarious, highly-offensive laugh-fests. If you don’t want to be offended or laugh histerically, skip these. Come back for next week’s shows. I enjoyed these podcasts, and I hope you do as well.

Seventy Two Pin Connector Podcast: Episode 023 – SEX

The cover shown above is the reason I invested in Sega via system purchase.

A long time ago, in a Toys R Us not far away (depending on where you are while reading this),

I walked by the glass video game case and saw what would alter (get it!?!?! lollololololololololol) how I reacted toward them forever.

I remember this being a bitch to play way back when,

in the days of the single digit age.

This is still the case.

You have to know what is coming or you’re done, son!

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of getting your preconceived notion of “your skill”

Drugged and violated while it sleeps to wake up to a crotch full of clamidia,

You’re in for a defeat treat!

“Rise From Your Grave”

The words that will both encourage and haunt you open the game in a graveyard… imagine that.

At which point you, in fact rise from your grave and are immediately attacked by zombies.

“Attack” isn’t exactly what they do,

But MAN do they… walk… in your general direction.

But kill them before they start blinking or they’ll self destruct and you’ll look like a fool.

Zombie-related problems are relatively easy to remedy in this case.

They are dismantled with little effort.

If you have thumbs, zombies shouldn’t be a problem at this point.

However, there are many more cuddly creatures to curtail your victory.

A Hamlet/Yorick hyrbid that punches you,

purple blobs that leap into the air and suffocate your face,

and Babe the Blue Ox from Paul fuckin’ Bunyan

Just to name a few.

Eventually, you’ll take down the mighty shrunken blue ox and he’ll turn into an orb.

Grab that bitch and you’ll begin the altering process.

Each time you alter you become stronger and bulkier.

Tearing the shirt open so you can be sure he got stronger.

While his pecks begin to glisten in the sun

you’ll realize how much you dig his body.

Why are you checking him out?

(I was going to make that into one big, absurdly worded gay joke to weird you out but it would have required a lot of effort

and I have homework to do… and games to play…

And they’re going through a lot so take it easy on them, ya homophobe!)

Grab three orbs altogether and you will …

ALTER…

INTO A BEAST!

Truck surfing, dancing and backflipping your way through the level

until you put down your air guitar to battle Neff, the cock who kidnapped Athena

(That happened, by the way. That is why Zeus brings you back from the dead in the first place…

Which I also neglected to mention).

He’ll say “Welcome to your doom!” and will transform into a…

I wouldn’t even know how to slap a title on that thing.

There seem to be a lot of references to Greek mythology, maybe it stems from that.

He turns alters into a different creature at the end of every level.

(the battle in level 2 is really easy if you know how to do it)

The best advice I can give to make it through this game is to make sure you get those 3 orbs ASAP.

Otherwise, you’ll approach Neff and not be able to fight him.

Then the level continues until you get the orbs necessary to alter into a BEAST.

It is possible to collect orbs after you’ve altered to BEAST form but they do nothing.

You’d think they’d be cool about it an maybe tack on another health bar

But that seems to be a little demanding of Sega

So collect those orbs immediately.

That way you don’t have to waste hits/lives on monsters, blobs and whatnot because you’re gonna need them…

For the sake of survival…

…

…

…

But seriously, nab those orbs immediately so you can transform.

You’ll have special moves that involve projectiles and hitting things with your animal body.

Eventually you’ll get to turn into a bear and cannonball around the screen.

…

OOH! And a draaaaaagon...

That shoots bolts of electricity.

I’ll allow it.

Really, I can’t tell you how to beat the game other than playing it until you know it better than yourself.

But there’s no reason to do that since it isn’t a great game.

It just barely makes it over the “good” mark.

However, it is definitely a game you’ll want to check out if you want a challenge.

Don’t waste more time than you need to but… you know what? Do go… you’ll have fun.

Sega Genesis – Altered Beast

Wario Land!! First off, I’d like to thank our listener Namagem for hooking us up with the very hard-to-find rom. For some reason.. (I’m guessing because of ESA regulation) its been stripped from the big rom sites. Anyway, thanks, yo!

Now onto the review: Wario Land was one of those games put out by Nintendo to try to push a hopefully-successful character at the time. Having the words: Super Mario Land 3 in the title was only branding to get people to stand up and take notice. Here’s my take on it: They didn’t need it. Wario Land is both a deep, challenging, and quite innovative. Playing this game when I was younger, I was obsessed with collecting the maximum amount of treasure and coins. Wario is an interesting Nintendo character among the staple cliche’s that have become video game legend, he is a greedy little bastard.

At the time, most Game Boy games were terribly shallow, with the obvious exceptions of the Mario games and Zelda: Link’s Awakening, more and more games were just brainless platforming or arcade-style games. Wario Land was kinda different. Yes, it was a platformer, but like Super Mario World, it was filled to the brim with optional content. Secret areas, hidden levels, treasures to uncover. The game was filled with content just begging to be unlocked. Anyway, its a Nintendo game, its got the most solid platforming around, and is one of my all time favorite Game Boy games. Check it out!

Game Boy – Wario Land