Parteibuch Aggregator Feed - Items from date 2010-08-23

The Old Bits: Heaps of reviews, change in navigation and some news!

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:28:00 +0000

While the blog has not been getting all that much love lately, that is soon to change.

First off the bat I have posted some archived reviews I wrote quite awhile ago, these include, Super Mario Bros, Hook, Kung Fu and many more. From now on all reviews will be completly new and in a differant format than past reviews, ie no more scoring system. It will just be me, and jfe2 when he returns, talking about how we felt about games in a much less formal layout.

All of these reviews can be found in the new and revamped reviews section which makes navigating much easier, the same has been done for the video's section all of which is in a new navigation bar just below the banner!

Also a new video review of Altered Beast on the Sega Megadrive / Genesis will be out shortly.

Cheers.

The Old Bits: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:22:00 +0000

Im not going to even explain the history of Harry Potter, we all know where it came from and the media darling that it is today. As is the case with pretty much any worth while movie and many not so worth while a game is not far behind to cash in. Usually these games are just horrible, and EA has a long list of horrible movie tie-ins. So does the latest Harry Potter game installment follow this trend? Lets find out.

Gameplay 7 out of 10
Now to be honest, I hate all the Harry Potter games, they are just boring and make you want to fall asleep with there cliche's left right and center and boring game engines.

EA has finally done something right, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a worthwhile game, never thought I would say it about a Harry Potter game, but they have completely revamped the way the games engine is set out. The easiest way to describe it is like the. Grand Theft Auto : Hogwarts. You follow a similar style of mission progression as the GTA games, look on your map, find somebody, get a mission and off you go. I didn't think it would work, but they have mixed it up enough to feel original and not a GTA rip off. It is so free roaming its not funny, you are literally discovering new things every time you walk through a hallway and believe me there are a lot of hallways .

I wont go into the story line, as I'm sure most of you know it, but if you don't, pick up the book or watch the movie because you wont find out about it here. I will go into the what I will call 'Wii-Wand' the wiimote as the wand adds an awesome feeling to play, and works fairly well, there are a set of 6 if I remember correctly hand patterns which are just pulling back, circle motion, etc that do either 6 combat spells if you in combat or 6 non-combat spells For exploring the castle, etc . I do have one problem and its always with the same spell Forgot its name but its the Fire spell it at times can take as long as 5 or 6 shots at the spell to cast it involves waving the wand left and right with lamps, etc selected and can get frustrating, but other than that, the wii-mote to wand is awesome.

Sound 9.5 out of 10
The sound in this game is something that is just amazing, they have got many of the actors from the movies to do the voice acting, which is awesome as it makes it feel a lot more universal. The music has both tunes from the music and its own music which are really amazing and breathtaking to be created for a video game Think Lord of The Rings / Harry Potter style tunes that are created for a game . Every character, no matter how small seems to have a voice of there own. The environmental sounds are great as well, walking past portraits hanging on the walls you can hear them having conversations. The same goes with students, before you know it you will be up to date with all the Hogwarts gossip. Really top notch sound here, no complaints from me at all.

Graphics 7 out of 10
The only downfall in this game is of course its graphics, its character models are fairly basic and there are more jaggies than you could pock a stick at. Then why did I score it so high your asking? Because theres more to graphics than poly counts and AA levels. The lighting used in this game is great, when you walk through a hallway with light shining in through the windows, it just looks beautiful, the entire castle looks beautiful, I will go on with that now.

The castle, first and foremost, is HUGE, its just massive. If your not following the footsteps of your map you will find yourself getting lost quite often. There are no, I repeat, no loading screens at all. When you walk though a door the hallway behind you fades away and you walk around the castle without single load, it really is great. The entire game looks like a piece of art, it is just beautiful to look at, despite it high amount of jaggies ,etc

The games cut scenes use the next gen versions engine with pre-rendered scenes If you have played Call Of Duty 3 you know what im talking about

There is one thing I disliked a bit, was the stiff animation in Harry's walk, its the character we are going to see walking in front of our camera for the entire game, he really should be animated nicely, but he just looks a bit stiff and when your on a long walk it can really annoy you.

Replay Value 7 out of 10
When you finish the game you are greeted with 'The Never ending Day' in which you can walk around the castle and finish any of the side missions you didn't finish while playing the game through as well as unlocking Videos Which have interviews with the cast and game crew of the game and movies and trophy's in the room of rewards, so once its finished, there is still quite a bit to do. There are also a few mini-games through out the game such as its own version of marbles, snap, memory and a few others, though you wont play those for long other than to get another trophy in your rewards room. So theres no brick wall on gameplay one you have finished the main story.

Overall 7.625 out of 10
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a curve ball I never expected to play, I purchased it for my 12 year old sister, after watching her play for awhile I tried it out and was surprised, it is a solid game and to get this form a movie tie in, one that has a horrible game past as Harry Potter, and its from EA. I found it amazing the game turned out the way it did. Im no massive fan, I have read the books and watch the movies when they come to dvd, thats about it. If you have been looking for a Harry Potter game but the past releases have turned you off as they did to me , this is the title for you. Even if you just like a good adventure, I would recommend this game. If you can look past the shotty models and the problems with the spells every now and again it is a fairly amusing game. Surprisingly Didn't think it would happen when I first heard of another Harry Potter game this gets the thumbs up from me.

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon

Final Fantasy Fables — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:19:00 +0000

Final Fantasy, a name that holds perhaps more responsibility for quality then any other franchise, It helped secure the PS2's place as the dominant console of its generation, and before that helped RPG fans find there new home on Nintendo consoles. Since the main series departure from Nintendo consoles Final Fantasy titles spin off titles have been average at best. Is the latest Wii exclusive any different? Lets find out!

Gameplay 5.5 out of 10
What is an RPG without its gameplay elements? Well its nothing, Chocobo's Dungeon takes what was there in the past Chocobo titles On the PS1 and NDS and builds upon them, its overtly dumbed down so that if this is your first RPG ever you wont have a problem with leveling up and equipping items, it may not be enough for hard RPG fans, but there is enough in your hands that you should be able to enjoy it. Pick items up by stepping over them and equipped them Three equip spaces ,one for ATK, DEF and other special items via the menu system, basic stuff.When it comes to leveling up the player has utterly nothing to do with it, you fight, get EXP points, level up, rinse and repeat.

The battle engine is again fairly basic, you walk around randomly generated dungeons In the same fashion you have in past Chocobo games while trying to get to the level floor with a wide arrange of enemy's in your way, you attack by facing an enemy and pressing attack, very basic but some
strategy does come into play, like when your out numbered and you walk down a thing hall so that you can fight enemy's one on one. The only thing that brings the battle system back from being overtly basic to the point its boring is the fact you have special moves, more of which you learn along the way and the ability you use items Which is expected as its an RPG . The battle system is basic, but it gets the job done.

The story is actually quite a lot better then I thought it would be and surprised me quite a bit. To paint a basic picture while Cid is trying to get a gem in a sand castle him and his partner chocobo named...you guessed it Chocobo, what a great writing team over at Square Enix who you control
are sucked into a vortex and end up in a far away land where people hear a bell that rings, and there memories are lost. Cid falls victim to said bell, a girl comes and says she will try to help you, then a baby is randomly born from a egg, the baby has the ability to go into peoples minds and open a portal to it so that we, Chocobo, can enter peoples minds AKA Randomly generated dungeons mentioned before get the memories back and go on with the story.... Amazing stuff, maybe not, but its better then Squares last outing on the Wii, That abortion of a Dragons Quest game.

Sound 9.5 out of 10
The sound in Chocobo's Dungeon is really awesome, we have a remix of past Final Fantasy tracks that have been beefed up, slowed down and some that sound nothing like the originals but still rock, the music, as it is in most Square Enix titles is well above par. Now before I popped the game into the Wii there was one thing I was not sure about, would it have full speech? Dragon Quest had speech, but it was utterly horrible and only really during cut scenes, Chocobo's Dungeon has speech for pretty much all important parts of the game with some of the less important town folks and so on appearing in text Much like was done in FFXII . Overall the sound is on par with a 'real' Final Fantasy, compared to there last outing on the Wii, sound has taken a massive leap forward.

Graphics 6 of 10
Now this bugs me to tears, why does every developer decide the Wii has to have some cartoony look to it other then going for realistic due to the systems power, Im sick of the bull**** japanese cartoony looking graphics that keep getting shoveled onto the Wii, they could have easily made the game look like Final Fantasy X, but they didnt! That being said, the graphics do suite the game I know you love how much I contradict myself, well I do too they do them well, but there is nothing overtly special about them, look at the screenshots, I don't have much else to say about them really.

Replay Value 6 out of 10
Now some people will say, random dungeons, sounds like an RPG I can play again once I have finished it, but the question that needs to be asked is, why would you really want to play it through again, the dungeons and battle system are not fun enough to really deserve a replay, the story while better than I expected and presented better than I expected hardly deserves a retelling. Im giving it a 6 just for the random dungeons and if you wanted to play it through again it would be differant, but the whole game is made of random dungeons, so it wouldnt feel that fresh or new.

Overall 6.75 out of 10
While Chocobo's Dungeon is slightly lackluster for a game bearing the Final Fantasy name, can we expect anything more? Not really. The game is a step in the right direction for the Chocobo series, and the Wii is so deprived of RPG titles that Wii owners like myself owe it to themselves to pick up anything they can get. If you like RPG's pick it up when you find it for a cheap price, I got it for again $40 USD when my uncle posted it over to me, not really worth the 40 bucks, but it was worth a play through. Find it cheap and give it a play. It doesn't hold up to a numbered Final Fantasy game, but as far as spin offs go, its a pretty decent little game.

The Old Bits: Quantom of Solace

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:15:00 +0000

Golden....Goldeneye? That is meant to be said in a James...James Bond kind of way That's the question on everyone's lips as they go into yet another James Bond game. No matter what changes, what is added, what is removed, how well it looks. No one really cares about any of that stuff when it comes to what they want in a James Bond game, there is only one question everyone wants to know and that is. "Is it as good as Goldeneye?" One of the hardest things the James Bond franchise has in its way is its own past, Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 is often regarded as the great Console FPS of all time. From its deep single player campaign following the movies story closely to the utter mayhem that was its multiplayer mode. The game was close to perfect. So how does Quantum of Solace stack up against a game that was pure gold? Lets find out.

Gameplay 8 out of 10
I will start with the thing that breaks many games on the Wii, how well the controls are integrated. Quantum of Solace is one of the most solid FPS efforts we have seen on the Wii,the controls are responsive and they bring in some welcome additions to the regular Wii FPS experience. The most important of which is the lock-on system. You hold down Z which willlock the enemy in the center of your screen and you blow them to high hell. They have done the correct thing by not overtly using the nunchuck for commands, a simple upward motion will allow you to reload your weapon. Another welcome feature is that you can hide behind low walls and doorways from which the angle becomes over the shoulder, much like Gears of War. Overall the controls are down pat and very tight, some of the best we have seen on a Wii shooter. The enemy's AI is not too bad either, they hide when they can and don't just stand still shooting like many other Wii shooters seem to.

Now the story I wont go into too much detail on, but it follows the plot of the movie obviously recreating many scenes from the movie, how well it follows the story I cant say as I have no seen the movie as of yet as it does not come out for a couple of weeks still. For those wondering about the health system, it works on a regeneration system Get down to 2% health, go hide for a moment while it regenerates back to 100% .

The game has a bit of Multiplayer offerings with both split screen and online gameplay, I wont go into too much detail about that now, you can read more about it the replay value section.

Sound 8.5 out of 10
The music is what you expect from a James Bond game, the classic Bond themes with a few newer and upbeat versions, but in the long run you have heard the tunes in the game a thousand times and you wouldn't be too amazed by any of it, but it does a very solid job. The sound effects of the guns and the bullets is on the dot with all of them sounding very clear and how they should sound.

Now the main reason I gave the sound such a respectable rating is that the voice acting Daniel Craig provides the voice of Bond is very well done, I am very glad they got Craig for the voice of Bond, there is nothing worse then when they use some 2bit voice actor and it completely destroys the feel of the game.

Graphics 7 of 10
Now a lot of people were talking about Quantum of Solace's graphics on the Wii being the best so far, I have to disagree, while you can have a lot of action on screen and fairly decent textures for a Wii game, it is nothing special We saw many better titles on the original Xbox it is very on par with what you would expect on a ps2 with a large amount of jaggies on screen. The character animation while not the best does a fairly decent job. The models on enemy's is fairly average with nothing to really wow anyone. Bond's model With Daniel Craigs likeness is fairly detailed and without a doubt the best looking model in the game. There are some parts of the game where the graphics are on par with N64, the water for example Pictured below is utterly horrible. It really doesn't feel like the Wii hardware is getting much of a workout with this title. Overall the easiest way of saying it is that the graphics do there job, there not ugly but there not as good as they could have been.

The game runs smooth without many notible slow downs which is a plus.

Replay Value 6 out of 10
The big hitter that made Goldeneye so appealing to everyone was without a doubt its multiplayer appeal, Quantum of Solace while offering 4 player split screen action seems like it would be amazing falls somewhat short, I invited a friend of mine over last night and got my dad involved and the main problem we found is that once you are given your peice of screen using the Wii-Motes is not as easy Or as fun when you had a screen to yourself. Quite often my friend would turn too hard left and the character would just spin on the spot, this is on a 50inch TV, I know a lot of people use smaller TV sets which would make this problem even bigger. It does a solid job of offering split screen gameplay, but there is nothing overtly special about it. You might have a few games here and there with your friends but after awhile I can see this one gathering dust.

The online multiplayer is by far worse, it has the normal draw backs of a Wii game in terms of online interactivity in that, well there is none. No one I know owns this game so I couldnt play against friends, I sat there for 10 minutes while it scanned for players, when I finally got into a game I felt like I was just playing against bots, with 0 way of communicating with people this game gets boring and fast. It does have a online rank system Stolen straight from Mario Kart Wii but it does little to add any reason to play online Unless you want to play against friends which is the only reason anyone would every want to play online with Wii anyway .

Overall 7.375 out of 10
Overall Quantum of Solace is a fairly solid shooter to add to your Wii Library, the Online aspect of it is useless, the Split Screen is worth a few games but wont pull you in like Goldeneye did so many years ago. The graphics may not be the best but they get the job done. It has very solid controls. I would recommend picking it up for its single player aspect if you want a good FPS fro your Wii, if not give this one a miss. They had the chance to make a killer game instead we gota game with a good single player mode, an average multiplayer mode and a utter **** online mode.

The Old Bits: Hook

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:12:00 +0000

If you were growing up in the 90's the chances are you saw Hook, the tale of a grown up Peter Pan returning to Neverland to face off once more with Hook. It was a great movie, one many of us link to our childhood. Now with any decent movie a licensed game was created in its image. Hook on the NES is one of those titles which is known for being really crap, give it a search on youtube and you will see what I mean. Now I did what I'm sure 90% of those reviewers didn't. I bought the game for my NES, I downloaded the manual for the game, and I read it. So many of those reviewers were complaining about not knowing what this or that does. Well I know what they do, does it make the game any more enjoyable? Is this a game that will never grow old or does it now have droopy hairy balls? Read on to find out.

Gameplay 4.5 out of 10
The gameplay is a basic platformer with the extremely boring 'collect to finish' rule, you have to collect a certain amount of items per level in order to be able to finish. Different levels have different items that you must collect from cupcakes to pearls, it all really has nothing to do with the movie, kind of annoying but oh well.

The controls are the main problem with the game you jump really high, which is kind of acceptable because after all your meant to be peter pan, but the most annoying aspect is without a doubt your main attack, which is a tiny little sword, its really 50/50 as to if you will hit your enemy first or if they will get you first, it is without a doubt the dumbest ***** I have ever seen in a game and a massive flaw which wrecks the experience, the game could have been so much better if they made your 'sword' More like a butter knife, not even a good butter knife just a few pixels longer. The one slight saving grace is that you can use tinker bell as a weapon by collecting thimbles as ammo, yea that's right the little **** wont follow you if you don't have any thimbles, what a *****!

Now its a Peter Pan game so you would guess you can fly through out the level, well your wrong! There are level dedicated to flying, which get boring really fast as you try to dodge TNT and lighting clouds all the while collecting marbles, but while ingame the only form of flying is by collecting marbles which then enable you to 'bounce' off the various sections of fairy dust. The biggest problem with this is that if you run out of fairy dust but missed something on the other side of the fairy dust, or the exit is at the other side, your screwed, you need to commit suicide.

There are some interesting gameplay aspects in the game, such as the underwater levels where you need to swim around with a health bar that gets lower and lower until you can find a air pocket. There are also some light puzzle aspects to the game as it goes on such as having to collect fire then moving a barrel of gunpowder to the right spot then having to jump on the gunpowder to be blasted up.

The last thing I will talk about is the enemy's so many of them are just random, there's a guru who floats around, there's a fire breathing dragon and heaps of other random stuff that you just have to ask yourself if they even watched the movie before making the game. The boss fight with Rufio is the biggest homoerotic scene I have ever seen in a video game its the first one to take the other ones shirt off, oh yea! Remember in the movie when Robin Williams had a knife on Rufio and made him take his shirt off? Yeah that was a hot scene.

Graphics 6.5 out of 10
The backgrounds look really decent for a NES game, as do the enemy's and everything is quite large in size which is a nice change. You can always tell what things are meant to be. The biggest graphical flaw is in Peter himself, the character we see for the entire game is the ugliest thing on screen. He looks more like Link than Peter Pan, if Link was and Albino, for some stupid reason his skin is completely white. I don't know why they decided to do this, the pirates and other the guru's have the normal tan coloured skin, but for whatever reason Peter Pan is now whiter than Micheal Jackson, Yea you knew a Jacko reference was coming. The characters sprite actually reminds me of Jackson from the South Park episode 'The Jeffersons'.

The graphics bar Peter are really top notch for a NES game, the score would have been higher but Peter really makes the rest of the screen look like garbage, which is a shame, yet again the developers had the ability to make it a worth while platformer, but it doesn't just play average it looks average because of something that could have been fixed in a matter of minutes.

Sound 3.5 out of 10
The background music is something that really ****s me up the wall, its all high pitched and just really annoying. In the movie Hook there is a beautiful arrange of original music, why on gods green earth couldn't they make some 8-bit versions of that, it would have been awesome. But no we are stuck with this annoying repetitive music. I don't even want to go any more
into it.

Replay Value 4 out of 10
Once you finish this game if you don't get bored by the fact the level design and game mechanics start to feel very repetitive I highly doubt you will want to pick it up and play again, you can finish the game in one sitting, which of course you have to because there no save feature, however when a game has a map system somewhat similar to the later Mario games, why it doesn't support saving system of some sort is beyond me, the game would be so much better if you could save, no one feels like going through all that item collecting bull**** again, but if you want to finish the game and run out
of continues, then that's just what you get to do, start the whole thing off again.

Overall 4.625 out of 10
The game is nothing amazing, actually I would say its below average. It had the chance to be a somewhat enjoyable game, but a bunch of little things in the gameplay mechanics really messed up the game. It has close to nothing to do with the movie which is a massive let down as it was a really great movie, I watched it again the day before I played Hook again for this review and I still thing its a class movie. All in all its better than most reviewers give credit for, however that's not really saying too much, its still pretty ****ty.

A fairly poor NES platformer, only worth picking up if you find it for under $2 and want to add to your NES collection.

The Old Bits: Super Mario Bros.

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:08:00 +0000

Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
How many times did that give you the sh**'s growing up? If the answer is none then you are total wanker and don't read this or any other of my reviews.

Super Mario Bros. on the NES, I don't know any gamer who has not played this game. It is pretty much the most iconic game in Nintendo's long history. No other game has had more of a impact on the world than this game, it pulled the video game industry out of the depression it was in. For over 20 years it was the highest selling video game of all time, only topped by Nintendo's console bundled, Wii sports. Its a hard game to review, without a doubt the hardest I have had to do so far. How do you review a game that almost every gamer has played and has loved for so many years? Well you can't really, but I made a deal with myself that I would review every retro cart I got my hands on, and this little number is next! So without further f***ing around here it is!

Gameplay 9 out of 10
Hmm how to start this... Its a platformer. From the day of it was released, it was the benchmark from which every single side scroller was compared to. You take control of Mario or his pallete swap of a brother Luigi, in there quest to save the princess from the evil giant turtle like Bowser. While saving a princess is nothing original, for the type of game it was the story didnt matter in the slightest. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Bros. has a wide array of original and challenging enemy's. From Goomba's to Koopa's they all haveone great thing in common, just a bounce on the head to kill them.

The game features powerups in the form of mushrooms and flowers. You start as small Mario, collect a mushroom you power up to big Mario, now with the ability to smash blocks and from there collect a flower and you transform into Super Mario with the ability to shoot fireballs at your enemy's. While the range of powerups is nothing compared to the later games, its hard to criticize a game when it is only bettered by its sequels, which of course had not been created yet.

I think the thing that makes the game so great even by todays standards is the fact that its gameplay mechanics are spot on. The controls are super responsive, you press jump and Mario says how high! Variable jumping joke if you missed it! you tap right just a tiny bit, Mario moves right just a tiny bit. While the game has its fair share of bugs Many of which are quite famous, world -1 anybody? they are not enough to take away from the raw gameplay.

One point I found a lot of my friends complain about when they would come over to my house and fire up my NES in recent days is the fact that when you die, you have to start again, the amount of people who didn't know the A+START combo on the start screen to continue at the start of the world you were just at amazed me. That was always well known in my household.

Graphics 8.5 out of 10
What a world Nintendo created with The Mushroom Kingdom, the detail shown with the backgrounds and tile sets is amazing compared to 99% of the games on the market at the time. While the graphics are great and everything is bright and colourful. I feel that compared to many other NES titles the games graphics most defiantly feel blocky at times in particular Mario's sprites, which is a bit of an eye sore today, but for such an early NES game it looks amazing and nothing can ever take away the look of how they all blend perfectly with one another.

I think one of the biggest pro's the game had going for it was how smoothly the screen scrolled, so many games of the era had single screens, but if they did have scrolling screens in the same way that Super Mario Bros. did it just was no where near as smooth, for years after its release games were still not getting the same smoothness that it achieved, it may sound pretty stupid by today's standards, but for such an important aspect of the game, to nail it perfectly it makes the entire game look better and not a slow down to be seen.

Sound 10 out of 10
Who's entire childhood doesn't light up in front of them when they hear the sound of Mario getting a coin? While the sounds pumped out of the old 8 bit box are hardly anything amazing compared to today's standards they all do there job and do it so well. They are all so original and just scream MARIO! If I put a random soundboard in front of a gamer and played through every sound in the game 99/100 would get a perfect score when saying where in the game the sound came from. Utter addiction !!!

Featuring some of the most recognizable tunes every created in a video game, Kōji Kondō has created a beautiful collection of very memorable tunes that after a few games you will find yourself humming or whistling for a few days later. Another great feature with the music is that as you run out of time the tempo of the music picks up, it really creates a sense of urgency.

The music is perfect, I don't need to really go into it any more.

Replay Value 8.5 out of 10
The game is loaded with secrets, from hidden 1-up mushrooms to Warp Zones which transport you to different worlds while skipping the ones before it. The game has enough secrets to keep you coming back for more even after 20 years of playing you are guaranteed that no two games of the game will be the same. Its always fun to watch a friend play Mario and do a secret you never knew existed. Years and years after I first played this game, I still find myself firing it up from time to time.

It also scores point on the Replay Value table by the fact it supports two players, while both players don't play at the same time like Double Dragon and such, it is still always fun to have your friends come over and fire up the NES to put to the test some of your friends "I was the best at that game" claims.

Overall 9 out of 10
Overall the game is a classic to put it simply, from the moment of its launch it changed the face of gaming and turned Nintendo in to The Big N, they took hold of the video game world and didn't let go until Sony forced them to. The game may not be as amazing today as it was back in the 80's but for myself and millions of others, it will always have a special place in our heart.

With sleek graphics, smooth gameplay that was so finely tuned it still holds up today and music that could make Mozart cry. Super Mario Bros. is without a doubt a must have for anyone.

You must own this game in some way, shape or form.

The Old Bits: Kung Fu

The Old Bits — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:05:00 +0000

Before Streets Of Rage. Before River City Ransom. Even before Double Dragon one game was released that put Beat em ups on the map in a big way. That game was Kung Fu for the NES, a port of the arcade hit Kung Fu Master which we wont reference from here on out as the review is on Kung Fu, not Kung Fu Master. Anyway the main object of Kung Fu, like every other beat em up you have ever played is to beat the utter **** out of everything that comes onto your screen. So how do the **** get kicked more than 20 years after the games release? Read on to find out.

Gameplay 7 out of 10
To start off Kung Fu is a movie tie in to Wheels on Meals staring Jackie Chan, In stereotypical fashion the movie involves Chan's character Thomas saving the Damsel in distress, named Sylvia. I wont go into too much detail about the movies plot as it doesn't really effect the game, however if your really interested just go see it.

Anyway, you play as a Thomas Chan who must save the damsel in distress Sylvia You do this by making it from the start of a level to the end of a level by walking from one side to the other in a traditional side scroller style.Sounds simple enough? Well it is, other than the fact there is a whole range of enemy's just waiting to belt the crap out of you. From those who just run and hug you to death Yea I know, What the hell is that all about! until you can shake them off, knife throwing enemy's who you have to watch to decide weather you need to duck or jump to dodge getting sliced open, snakes, dragons that breath fire, front flipping midgets and more. But the most challenging thing is that every level has its own unique boss. For an early Beat Em Up Kung Fu had a great range of enemy's.

The controls while basic are everything you could ask for in a NES game. Up/Down/Left/Right to move left,right and to jump and crouch. B to Kick and A to punch. You can And need to for certain enemy's do fly kicks/punches and duck while kicking and punching. The thing that makes the controls so great is that Kung Fu is not a button masher, if your hoping you will fire your NES up and click A and B as fast as you can your not going to get very far. You need to time every attack, remember how to attack every enemy and so on. That being said one of the games biggest downfalls is that is it a fairly hard game, not that hard that it will turn you off if your a beat em up fan, if anything it will make you play more and get better but I imagine those with a short gaming attention span will be turned off by the fact the game is hard if your not willing to learn how to fight each enemy.

Sound 6 out of 10
Now the sound is pretty solid but nothing great I am of course comparing it to other games in the NES library While the level intro tune in unforgettable and the sound effects for kicking, etc are great the game feels very quite at times as there is no background music playing . It doesn't really hurt the experience but it does make it feel a lot slower than it should at times. Overall though the sound is a solid effort.

Graphics 6.5 of 10
Again the graphics are solid for its release date but there nothing really that special by comparison of other NES titles, what they do right however is the fact the characters are quite large on screen when compared to many other future beat em ups like Double Dragon, you can always clearly see what the characters are doing and the animation is fairly solid for the time. There is nothing really that special that stands out but the game is still very playable by today's standards and a lot of that is because the graphics while basic mean that they don't look as dated as many other NES titles.

Replay Value 8 out of 10
Because of how hard the game is you will more than likely be playing it quite often, it has the tendency to leave you with close to no health by the time you reach the levels boss meaning you die, but being so close you can help but want to do it all again. The game also features a MODE B which is the same game only harder. It also has 2 player in both MODE A and MODE B so if you can find a friend who has an eye for either beat em ups or just retro games in general you can get them in on it, that being said the Multiplayer is just 'take in turns' gameplay where you compete for the high score much like the original Super Mario Bros.

Overall 6.95 out of 10
Kung Fu is one of the Granddaddy's of the beat em up genre. Its an early example of why so many of us love these types of games. Its a solid beat em up and solid example of a game based on a movie done right.

Its a worthy addition to any Retro gamers Or Beat Em Up lovers NES library.

Video: Activision, circa 1981

Video — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:10:00 +0000

It was a wonderful time for America and an even more wonderful time for video games, which would, in a few years, emerge as the most important thing ever. But, back in 1981, Activision, a young scrapper in a booming industry who would one day become champion of the video game world after defeating Apollo Creed, of course , created a now-hilarious video as a means to market the company and its products -- and that's probably the best part of this little spiel: the products.

Peppered throughout the video are brief commercials for some of the company's games, including Kaboom!, Stampede and Ice Hockey -- ads very different from how Activision would market something like, say, Call of Duty: Black Ops, today. Man, remember when you could just go and call a game Ice Hockey? The times, they've done changed!

[Note: Embedding has been disabled, so you'll have to head on over to YouTube to watch the video.]

Video: Activision, circa 1981 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IGN Retro: Portland Retro Gaming Expo Coming Soon

IGN Retro — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:02:00 +0000

This September, the City of Roses is going 8-bit.

Benj Edwards: [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Grolier’s Encyclopedia on CompuServe

Benj Edwards — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:34:40 +0000

“Press <CR> for more” For my sixth grade social studies class, I wrote a report on Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union. And he really was “former” then — the USSR had fallen apart just two years prior to my report in 1991. For that report — which I ran across recently [...]