Getting Nostalgic with Gaming Memories

I am so thankful that I experienced gaming at the time I did.

As far back as I can remember, I have been obsessed with gaming. My earliest memories come 1991 when I was four years old. I had a babysitter who would take me down the street to the house of another kid she looked after. Lucky for me, this family owned a Nintendo Entertainment System which was hooked up to a small tv in the musty attic. I can remember the attic being absolutely cluttered with toys from the 80s; I guess these guys were hoarders before that term became commonplace. I wouldn't be allowed up in the attic by myself, but when school was out and the older sibling came home, everyone went upstairs.

Of course the game that I visually remember seeing being played day in and day out was Super Mario Bros 3. I didn't know then, but the game had been recently released, and was considered the premiere game on the system. I was rarely allowed to play, but I can still close my eyes and remember seeing that television screen through the decaying fog of time.

My mom was such a sweetheart. I remember taking trips with her to the mall across my home city of London Ontario. We would go to this mall, Westmount, that had a pretty decently sized video arcade in an alcove right off of a food court. I'd get to eat tasty, greasy fast food and then given $5, maybe upwards of $10 in quarters while my mom would read out front. I loved the arcade experience. It was dark but filled with neon lights and the sounds of pinball paddles and hadookens could be heard all around. The games that really attracted me at the time were sidescroller beat-em-ups. Konami and Capcom were king of this domain. I can't tell you how many quarters I pumped into Turtles in Time or the Simpsons. Those would have probably been my favorites back then, but I got a good dose of everything - from Street Fighter 2 to Smash TV and the oldschool looking Pacman tabletop game. I've heard stories from people older than me (I'm 27) about how seedy arcades were and how they were a hangout for gang activity and drug dealing. Well I never experienced any of that; the punks and the drug dealers left me alone to play my Turtles in Time.

I remember wanting a Gameboy for Christmas more than anything. I can specifically remember once having a dream where I had a Gameboy, and then woke up pissed off because it wasn't real. Amazing. However I wasn't tortured for long because I got my very own Gameboy for Christmas when I was five years old. Of course I got the pack in title Tetris, which is the only video game I can remember my dad ever playing on his own, but I also got a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From the Sewers. I would say it was a portable mix of TMNT 1 and 2 for the NES, two vastly different games. I got a lot of play out of that game, but never was good enough to get far in it.

Sometime around 92/93, my parents bought a Genesis for the family. I had seen one a few months prior at my aunt and uncles house. I remember being blown away by the colours of Sonic the Hedgehog, it was such a vibrant and beautiful game at the time. My dad hooked it up to our 26' wood-enclosed television set and it was something quite amazing to behold. I love my parents so much for fostering my interest in gaming at an early age.

It's funny how now I'm more of a SNES fan than a Genesis fan, but I am so thankful to have had the Genesis growing up. There were some sick games on that system I was lucky enough to play as a kid. Aside from the Sonic games, I developed an early love for action adventure (which would later turn me into a Zelda fanatic) in the Genesis exclusive Beyond Oasis (or The Story of Thor outside of North America). The first time I felt video games could be really unique and artistic was when I saw Comix Zone, a game that still is completely unique stylistically. Shining Force II got me into SRPGs and Streets of Rage 2 made me feel like I was playing an arcade game.

Some of my favorite games of all time are on Super Nintendo. I didn't get to play classics like Super Mario World, Link to the Past, Super Metroid and Final Fantasy 3/6 until I was much older. I remember when I was in the video rental store as a kid, I would look on in envy at the cool box art for the Super Nintendo, knowing I couldn't play those games. I'm so glad I finally did, but I wouldn't trade my early Genesis memories.

Another story about my mother and I at the mall involves a store called Beyond Reality. This was a store you could walk in and pay for 30-60 minutes of game time and play on any console you wanted and any game you wanted and swap in and out as much as you wanted. This was around 1995 when the 32 bit consoles were starting to hit. I was able to experience 3DO, Playstation, Saturn and even the Virtual Boy (ugh, even as a kid I knew that was trash). I even had a birthday party there one year. My parents took six or seven of my buddies and let us all have our own console, it was great times, and some of my friends ended up doing their birthday parties there too. One specific memory I had from my birthday party was when I asked the clerk for something scary. Well lo and behold, the first Resident Evil had just came out and he sat 8/9 year old me down in front of it. I'll tell you, when I encountered that first zombie munching on Kenneth in the hallway, I dropped the controller. Hahaha, I couldn't even move I was so scared.

Good times, great memories.

January has been Zelda Month

I didn't plan on it but January ended up being the month of Zelda for me. In the past month I've played through both Wind Waker HD on the Wii U and Link Between Worlds on the 3DS. I dipped a bit into Majora's Mask and the Master Quest version of OOT and to my surprise I also finally finished Spirit Tracks for the DS, along with going through Link to the Past and Link's Awakening again prior to LBW just to get a refresher (seeing as how those 3 games are kind of in line with one another as far as the timeline goes). So I guess I'll give some thoughts.

So I'll start with the classics, the games I have played before.

I guess I'll start with the first Zelda game I ever played. Link's Awakening for the Gameboy. I loved this game, it was always in the back of my GB ready to be played. I can remember getting stuck on it fairly early on, specifically the nightmare key on the second dungeon had a puzzle that just stumped me as a kid. It wasn't until I had a conversation with another boy at the YMCA that I was told about the sequence I needed to kill three monsters in that the key would be revealed. Once I got home and did this, the rest of the game was a breeze. Remember, this was the dark times before the internet. I couldn't just 'look it up' back then. Link's Awakening remains as one of those games I can always pick up and play.

Link to the Past is a game I wish I owned and played as a child. Being a Sega kid however, I had to look on in envy when I would go over to my friends places and see them playing it. The closest thing we had on Genesis was Beyond Oasis, which is a mix of Streets of Rage and Zelda. It would be years later, around grade 9 or so, that I would play through the whole game for myself. Just amazing. This game set the stage for the 'classic' Zelda format that OOT, Twilight Princess, and even Link Between Worlds (to a degree) would follow. LTTP is another game in the Zelda franchise I can pick up and play any time day or night and have a good time.

Majora's Mask is a game that I didn't like in 2000 when it came out. I think I loved Ocarina of Time so much that when MM came out and was so drastically different, my 12 year old self just couldn't get on board. I think the things I hated most about it at the time was Link being a kid, and the whole time aspect. I hate being timed in games, I don't enjoy that pressure. So I never even got to the first dungeon as a kid. I gave up on it so quickly. Years later, like in 2007, I decided to play through it, and I loved it. I realized that the time limit was more than enough for any task given to you in the game (such as completing a dungeon) and the game had a dark & sinister style to it that no other game in the Zelda franchise, even to this day, has matched. There's a popular theory about how Majoras Mask is representative of death and the Kübler-Ross model of grief. It's a large topic for debate, but I think the points presented in the argument are valid. It's a heavy game and a lot more thought provoking than any Zelda I've ever played. I played a bit of it this month, however I got stuck on some very difficult mini games (the shooting galleries) and haven't gone back to it.

The Ocarina of Time Master Quest is something I never got to play as I didn't own a Gamecube. I've been able to dip into it due to it's inclusion in the OOT 3D remake for 3DS. I got to say, I would consider myself a 'Master' of OOT but this game has stumped me as early as Dodongo's Cavern. As of right now, I'm only in Jabu Jabu's Belly which is proving to be equally perplexing. I'm definitely getting my moneys worth out of this one.

Spirit Tracks is a game that has haunted me quite a bit. Since I do not own the physical cartridge, I have previously been playing it off my DSTwo Supercard. Unfortunately every time I got far in it, my game would corrupt and I would lose all my data, along with the will and drive to start it up again. This month I finally did it. I played through the whole game start to finish and finally can put it on my list of beaten Zelda games. My final verdict? I will say that I think Spirit Tracks is superior to Phantom Hourglass, but inferior to Link's Awakening and Link Between Worlds. Opinions are like assholes and everyone's got them, but that's mine right there. I think they did some great stuff when it comes to the central dungeon and the inclusion of Zelda as a sidekick. But there were some stuff that pissed me off. I did not enjoy the final boss fights, which could be because I just wanted the game to be over by the time I got to them.

So now we get to the two new games I got for Christmas. Wind Waker HD and Link Between Worlds.

So to start off I'll say I never played Wind Waker on Gamecube and to be honest, I'm kind of glad I didn't. I heard a lot of negative stuff about the sailing and the end game triforce quest. Both of which I didn't really feel were a problem with this game, due to the inclusion of the swift sail and the revamped version of the triforce quest. I genuinely had a blast with Wind Waker. Sailing around the huge sea didn't feel like a chore to me at all. I loved Wind Waker's art style (something I hated back when the game was revealed) and the story was great. I love how the world I knew back from the OOT days was destroyed by a great flood. Going down into the depths of the ancient kingdom was exciting and nerve wracking. The game was familiar enough and different enough at the same time. This all being said, I did use a prima strategy guide that I got with the game. I feel like there would be some parts of the game that I wouldn't figure out if I didn't have that book.

Link Between Worlds was a game I needed no assistance with whatsoever. I had a great time playing through it. I enjoyed the ability to play the dungeons in any order. It seems that in this game, the big items were the passive items from the normal games. I felt the items like the flippers and pegasus boots were more important to opening up the world than the items you rented out from Ravio. Not a bad thing at all, it was a cool change. I liked how the ammo was replaced by magic power, allowing for more elaborate puzzles involving bombs and arrows than before. I enjoyed the twist (though I saw it coming a mile away) with the princess of Lorule. What blew my mind was the reveal of who Ravio really was. Also the end boss fight against the Ganon-like creature really put me to the test. I believe I had one or two hearts left and a slew of empty bottles when I delivered the last blow. Definitely the closest end game boss I've had with a Zelda game in years.

So it's been a fun month. A lot of Zelda love. It's definitely my favorite series in video games. I look forward to seeing what's down the pipeline for Zelda. I really have high hopes for a Wii U Zelda with Skyrim-esq exploration.

Peace out!

Assassins Creed III

Played on: Xbox 360

So I know I'm a year behind on this one. To be honest, the game has been sitting in my 360 collection gathering dust while younger and more attractive games were being played. It was a lovely Christmas present from my girlfriend Zoey, so why haven't I played it yet? To be fair, I played it for about an hour when I got it a year back, and for whatever reason I shelved it. Tonight I put it back in my 360, and I think I know why it got shelved in the first place.

Before I go into this, I should tell you that I am an Assassins Creed fan. I own AC, AC2, AC Revelations and now AC3. I played a good portion of the first one before I ran into game breaking mechanics about three quarters of the way in. It really didn't leave a great impression on me. As many reviewers have said, the game felt more like an engine than a game.

Fast forward to two years later, we get Assassins Creed 2. WHAM! Now THIS was a game. I rented it for the weekend and finished everything there was to do in it. From beginning to end I was hooked. I loved the revenge story, the character Ezio (who was so much more fleshed out than Altair was in AC1), the game mechanics that broke the first game were fixed and it had some neat side missions that would improve my weapons and armor in the game.

Moving on to a few years later, my friend let me borrow Assassins Creed Brotherhood. This one I also played to completion but it wasn't as memorable as AC2 was. It had some cool new mechanics like recruiting your own assassins and it explored Rome and the Borgois family as Ezio hunts them down. I got AC Revelations shortly thereafter but I didn't get too far into it. Mostly because I was fresh off the experience of playing Brotherhood that I didn't feel like getting into another AC game. In all honesty, I haven't played it anywhere near enough to give an honest opinion on Revelations so I'll just leave that there.

So now we're at Assassins Creed III. To be honest, I think the main reason I popped this fucker into my 360 tonight was because AC IV has recently been released and a lot of people are calling it the best of the series. I guess before I try AC IV, I need to play a little bit more of AC III so I put er in.

I loaded up a 1% save file from last Christmas and popped into the boots of some colonialist in Boston during the 1700s. Okay! Time to run up some buildings and fuck people up from the skies right? Well... no. In fact the opening of the game has you walk up to someone and cut to an exposition-filled cutscene. After that ended, I was in a mission where I had to... follow someone while they give me more exposition-filled dialogue. When we got to our destination there was *sigh* another cutscene. After that my character decided to follow this group of soldiers who were holding a captive my character needed free. So we follow them down the street. Not up on the roofs, no, in the streets, that's where the action is.

Now this is where my first problem was. I decided that this is an open world game, and damn it, it's my world and I'm gonna play the way I want to play. Isn't that the point of a sandbox game after all? To simulate the feeling of a free and open environment? So I looked at the map and saw where the crowd of soldiers were taking this captive and decided I was going to cut them off. This is when I was met with my first (of many) desynchronizations.

Now to the uninitiated, a desynchronization occurs because you are not doing what the game wants to you to do. See this guy Desmond is in this animus machine reliving the memories of his ancestors and these memories are VERY precise. So precise that if he doesn't move the specific way, talk the specific way, and act the specific way his ancestor did, he gets yanked out of the anemus and BITCH SLAPPED by the people running the simulation. This is at least how I imagine what is happening, in the actual game you get stopped immediately and sent back to the beginning of the mission (a game mechanic that is used in challenging platformers... not something that is meant for modern 'interactive movies' as I call them).

So the game cuts me off of my plan to cut them off. No, I'm not supposed to come up with my own plan, stupid me. I'm supposed to follow them down the street, making sure I don't get too close, but at the same time, not losing sight of them. Then when I get to the correct destination and all the conditions are met, I'm given *wait for it* ANOTHER fucking cut scene. I was literally walking from cut scene to cut scene.

About 10 minutes later, I'm on a mission where I need to rescue native captives from these redcoats. Why? I don't fucking know, I'm sure they told me but they way they told me was so boring or convoluted that I just didn't give a fuck. So my guy is riding down the road and the only control I have is pressing the left bumper button when I want my guys to attack these enemy troops who will notice you if you take too long. I know this is just the beginning of the game, but WHERE is the gameplay? You are not selling me with intro missions like this.

Let's look at how Assassins Creed II started. I haven't played it since 2009 when it was released so my memory is a little hazy. So we meet Ezio and his brother who have a natural competitive nature towards each other. They race to the top of a building (teaching you the games climbing and free running mechanics). You go home and are introduced to Ezios mother, sister, and lady love (of the night). The next day you find out your sisters fiance is being a dick, so you go and fist fight him (teaching you the games combat mechanics). I know it's stupid to compare, but AC2 made me feel compelled from the very beginning. I loved Ezio, this was a cool young guy who lost everything. I wanted to see him make things right in the world.

Back to ACIII, I get on my feet and start sneaking into the red coat camp to free the prisoners. I went to the back of the camp and broke out the first group. I moved to the middle and broke out the second group. The last group was at the back of a ship docked near the other side of the camp. I walked to the boat, jumped aboard, went to the back where some guy started getting suspicious of me. I pulled out my blade and DESYNCHRONIZED. Yeah that's right I was supposed to get all 3 of them out without being 'detected'. I'm not saying this is hard, I'm just angry that the game wants you to do VERY SPECIFIC things and I (as a player) am not getting enough information to do what the game wants me to do. They literally drop you in a field so you initially have the illusion that you can tackle this mission any way you want, and then you get bitch slapped by your friends on the other side of the animus.

I played a little bit more, going into the frontier section of the game which is the wilderness but I just couldn't stand the constant desynchronizations for not playing the way the game wants me to play. My gaming session ended with a 'fuck this' and an unpowered xbox.

I can't really give this a review because I couldn't even get to the main assassin of the game, named Connor. I feel like the game will open up but I just cannot get past how stupidly infuriating the opening missions are. They are broken. What I played didn't even feel like a game. It felt like an interactive movie with a pretty engine. Now I haven't played the ending myself, obviously, but I have seen videos on youtube of how excruciatingly linear the final mission in the game is. You chase a guy through the city streets to inside a burning and exploding ship. You have to go through it a VERY specific way and if you don't, you get blown up or desynchronized. If this is how the game ends, I don't care to play it. Fuck this game.

My Rating: Fuck Skip this Game

Currently Playing: Aliens Infestation (2012)

Playing on: Nintendo DS

As a kid who grew up in the nineties, there was no franchise I enjoyed as much as Aliens. I had the kenner toys, all the movies, the comic books; I was a fan! As I saw the advancement of video games while I grew up, I was always looking for something that could emulate the experience I had while watching the movie or playing with the toys. Realistic shooters like Doom were coming out and I knew it was only a matter of time before I got my hands on a great Aliens game.

My first hands on with an Aliens game wasn't an Aliens game at all, nor did it have any affiliation with the series. It was a Games Workshop game, Space Hulk for 3DO. The game had marines, aliens (genestealers/tyranids), and dramatic deaths. For a ten year old who was itching for that Aliens experience, this was a great substitute. I played that game all the time. Most of the time I didn't survive, it wasn't an easy game to say the least. There was a sense of dread in knowing that death was around every corner.

Growing up, I never had a Super Nintendo, but my buddy down the street rented Aliens versus Predator a couple of times. Even back then it wasn't particularly interesting. A side scrolling brawler with little enemy variety and challenge. So I can probably say it doesn't hold up well by today. The Aliens Versus Predator that I do remember fondly was made by Rebellion for PC. The multiplayer had a survival mode that became a staple in every Aliens game to follow. One person starts as an alien, and whoever they kill becomes an alien until there are no marines left.

Of course, I have to mention the amazing Aliens Versus Predator 2 by Monolith in 2002. From what I remember, this was by far my favourite Aliens game. It had an awesome singleplayer campaign (which I thought was lacking in the first AvP) and an even better and more addicting multiplayer. There is still an online community for AvP 2 players to this day, even though the official servers have been taken down. This is truly a testament to its awesomeness.

Lets move on to Infestation already.

Aliens Infestation is developed by Wayforward and produced by Gearbox and SEGA. Out of the 3 major Aliens games that Gearbox and SEGA have produced, I can already say that Infestation is my favourite. The game is faithful to its source material, which is critical in a licensed franchise. The combination of the sound, look and the tense feel of the game, it all screams Aliens. The aliens spray acid when shot, spring out of ceilings and floors to ambush and charge at you with ferocity. When your marines die, they're gone for good. If they're killed by an alien, there's a possibility that you can find them cocooned in the hives below. You can rescue them before they're inevitable impregnation.

The gameplay is a welcome mix of Contra and Metroid, two games I love. The run and gun shooting is a very similar feeling to Wayforwards previous Contra 4, which is nothing but good stuff. Then there's the exploration/upgrade elements from the Metroid games. Your given a map and a waypoint to where the next objective is, but exploration is left entirely up to you. Littered throughout the maze are save rooms and areas inaccessible until you have the proper upgrade. These upgrades are hidden throughout and include items like blowtorches and shoulder lamps. There are new weapons like the shotgun, flamethrower, and smartgun. Weapon are upgraded to make them stronger, and even extra marines who have survived and are hiding out. You are given 4 marines to start with and can use one at a time. If a marine dies, you will have to replace them, either by finding a lost marine or by rescuing your former comrade in the alien hives (if he was killed by an alien).

That's all there is to say on it right now. I am still currently playing it and will wrap my thoughts up when I'm done. If your a fan of 2D action done well, or Aliens, check this out.

What games are you looking forward to in 2013?

This list is only for the games to be released up to June as we don't know what will be announced at E3 2013 for fall/winter.

Just a short list off the top of my head

Tomb Raider (March)

Bioshock Infinite (March)

South Park - The Stick of Truth (Delayed)

Aliens: Colonial Marines (February)

Dead Space 3 (February)

Game Review: Donkey Kong Country (1994)

Played on: Super Nintendo

Simply an amazing platformer! You always feel in control and the difficulty of the levels becomes dastardly! Stock up on extra lives on the first level and you'll be set for a while. There are few video game moments that feel better than cruising through a level of DKC at top speed and tempting fate by narrowly missing death.

The music in this game is phenomenal, pretty much every level has a catchy beat or melody that sticks in your head, driving you to play the game more and more to scratch the itch. From the funky bonus room blitz song to the epic showdown battle score when you fight K Rool, the music is pure bliss.

DKC was the first fully rendered game and it showed. There wasn't anything else out at the time on either SNES or Genesis that looked anywhere close to DKC. But graphics are nothing without solid gameplay, which is where DKC shines. The game stocks 6 stages with about 6 levels per stage. They are all unique, though some swap color pallets, and each has their own distinct challenge.

Building a Super Nintendo Collection

I bought a SNES over eBay a few weeks ago. I grew up with a Genesis, which kept me content, but I knew how good the competition was. That isn't to say I never played it, my buddy Spencer had a SNES and I got to sample many of the classics in their heyday. Donkey Kong Country really stands out in my memory as something I was envious of my friends about. As I grew older and emulation became a common thing, I got to sample the SNES library at the comfort of home. Albeit, I am something of a purist and sought out the original games on the original platform.

So far my collection includes the following:

Super Mario Allstars
Super Metroid
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Country 2
Killer Instinct
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Super Mario World
 Super Mario RPG

The following is the list of games I have yet to acquire:

Final Fantasy III (Mid - ~$60)
Chrono Trigger (Expensive - ~$90-120)
F-Zero (Cheap - ~$15)
Turtles in Time (Mid - ~$60)
Super Castlevania 4 (Mid - ~$60)
Contra III (Mid - ~$60)
Doom
Secret of Mana
Starfox
Tetris/Dr. Mario
Megaman X
Super Mario Kart

This post will be updated as games are acquired.