Rampage Part 2

    ****Continued Spoilers of the Rampage series ahead****

     Hello again and welcome back to this series overview on Rampage. In the last blog I took a look at both the original arcade game that started it all and it's sequel/remake, Rampage World Tour. Both games were very similar to each other which in the long run hurt World Tour despite it adding a number of new features. Rampage World Tour would sell well enough that a sequel would be made. The game picks up after the events of World Tour. George, Lizzie, and Ralph have been returned to normal size. George is transferred to a holding facility in New York City, Lizzie in Tokyo, and Ralph in London. Think about all of that for a second. See if you can figure out the three references there. I'll throw them out there at the end of the segment if you haven't figured it out by then. Along with the world, Scumlabs has been rebuilding until disaster would strike once again. The Scumlabs facility in Salt Lake City would have yet another toxic event and accidentally unleash three new mutants on the world. Rampage Universal Tour has begun. 

    Boris becomes a massive Rhino, Curtis turns into a huge rat (not to be confused with Larry from the Atari Lynx port of the original arcade game), and Ruby turns into a huge lobster-like creature. The three set out to do what Scumlabs mutants do best. Destroy everything. This time though they also have the objective of freeing George, Lizzie, and Ralph from their respective prisons. One by one, the original three mutants join the three newcomers and continue to devastate the world until..... Aliens invade.... Suddenly the mutants start to defend the world they just wrecked and chase the aliens to Area 51 where a mysterious cyclops mutant named Myukus is released. Myukus and the other mutants then chase the aliens to their home planet where the mutants return the favor of invading to the aliens and devastate their cities. 

    The gameplay is more of the same. Go from city to city and destroy it. There is no World Tour feature this time as you will be focusing on releasing the original mutants instead of just trying to wreck the world. Much like World Tour, Universal Tour adds some new features and also expands on the previous game. This time around there are over seven playable characters though the last two are just recolors of Myukus with different names and stats. Yes, each character now has different stats for climbing, power, and overall walking speed which adds a bit more variety. Bonus stages return, but are more varied and involve things from long jumping to smashing buildings quickly, to eating a number of people. All of these bonus stages are far more entertaining in multiplayer though. Under the health meter you will notice a second bar. That is actually a power meter that when filled can unleash an incredibly powerful attack that can level even the largest building in one shot. The attack varies from character to character. For example, Boris charges forward and slams into a building while Ruby spins like a tornado shredding anything in her path. Boris's attack pretty much guarantees a building coming down, but Ruby's does more widespread damage. 

    The cities are actually expanded again, but not in size. Actual landmarks have been added into the game. For example, when you visit London, you will find yourself climbing and bringing down Big Ben and the Towers of London. In New York City you will take down the Empire State Building and World Trade Center (this game came out before 9/11). In Washington D.C. you'll have the opportunity to take it to the political system and destroy both the Capitol building and the White House. That'll get some frustration out right? Time however, has become of the essence as the world's (and alien) military will send bombers to attack you if you take too long in a city. Unlike previous installments in the series, you only have a few lives so getting hit by those bombers will severely hamper your efforts. Another update to the cities is their backgrounds. Unlike World Tour which offered generic city backgrounds, Universal Tour tries it's best to emulate what the city looks like, even in the background. That means if you are in New York City, you may recognize the design of some of the buildings in the background. It's a small change, but meaningful as far as immersion goes. One final change to the cities is weather. In a nice change, you'll sometimes be destroying cities during sunny days, or stormy days, or in the black of night. It gives you the feeling that time is passing as you move around the world. That's something that up until this point was lacking. I once thought to myself in Rampage World Tour if the mutants just decided to attack at the same time in a different place everyday. That feeling is dealt with with this small, but impactfull change.  

    Universal Tour improves on World Tour in every way. The graphics are better, the sound is better, the gameplay is.... marginally... better, and the cast of characters is better. That being said, a lot of the features that were added in were basically the other half of what should have been in World Tour. Honestly, if World Tour came out today, Universal Tour would be DLC as opposed to it's own game. That's not a knock on Universal Tour, just a reminder of where World Tour fell short and yeah, a shot at a lot of half finished modern games needing tons of DLC (Star Wars Battlefront) or day one patches. I digress... Rampage 2: Universal Tour was the best in the series at the time and remains my personal favorite. 

    There are two more games in the Rampage series that I am going to look over. I will not be looking at Rampage Total Destruction as it did not appear on any of the consoles I normally cover here, nor have I actually played it... Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the final installment in my Rampage overview!

Rampage Part 1

    Way before video games were fun to make movie adaptations of there was the arcade. In 1986, one of my favorite arcade games would be unleashed upon the world. That games is now the next game to be made into a movie. If history has taught us anything it is that movie adaptations of video game,s more often then not, do not go so well. Time will tell if Rampage will be a hit or yet another blunder, but for now I want to look at some Rampage games. For those who are not sure on what Rampage is, it's quite simple. The original arcade game stars three humans whom through a few different events mutated into monsters. George mutated into a massive ape, Lizzie became a massive lizard monster similar to Godzilla, and Ralph became a giant wolf.

    Since there are three monsters, three players can play at a time. In the arcade game you go from city to city and simply destroy everything. In order to proceed to the next level you will need to destroy all the buildings. Eating all kinds of things will give you health as you are attacked by a barrage of military and police forces. Things you can eat include people food.... and people... It's like a real life King Kong or Godzilla. 

    That's the whole game. Just going from city to city. There is no real story to be had. There is also no real ending to the game. After 768 days spanning five cycles of 128 days the game resets to day one. The game largely takes places across the continental United States along with a couple Canadian cities. The game would be ported to a multitude of consoles including the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System. Version difference are pretty limited, but there are a couple major things. Ralph does not appear in the NES version and the Atari Lynx version actually adds another mutant in the form of a rat named Larry. Overall, the arcade version I think is the definitive version of this game so if you ever happen to stumble across a Rampage machine, check it out. I really wish I had more to say about this game. I still remember pouring quarters into this machine at the local roller skating rink (what's that?) and even having random kids and even adults jump in and help just shred cities. It seems kind of mindless now, but it is still fun to this day. 

****Spoilers ahead from games in the Rampage series*****

    Rampage would see a revival in 1997 with the second game in the series, Rampage: World Tour. The game once again featured George, Lizzie, and Ralph doing what the do best, causing total mayhem and destroying city after city. Unlike the original arcade game, Rampage: World Tour actually has a story. Scumlabs at some point after the original game had captured and imprisoned the three mutants. At the start of the game the trio breaks out and sets out on a world wide war against Scumlabs. They take no prisoners as they smash and eat their way though the entire world in search of Scumlabs facilities. Finally in a desperate move the CEO of Scumlabs transforms himself into a mutant in an attempt of defeating the trio. He fails and is killed, but another Scumlabs scientist manages to shrink and recapture the trio, ending the world tour. 

    World Tour brought a bunch of new features and even some freedoms to the series. As I mentioned earlier, the game came out in 1997 and much like it's predecessor, was ported to many systems including the Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, and even the Game Boy Color. I have the most experience with the Nintendo 64 version of this game, so that's the version I will talk about for the rest of this portion of the blog. 

    Visually, World Tour is an obvious upgrade from the original regardless as to which system you play it on, perhaps Game Boy Color aside. George, Lizzie, and Ralph can now come in several different colors that can be selected before you start the game. At long last you can change Lizzie into a crazed purple Godzilla/Barney hybrid. Glorious. The gameplay is a bit different than the original as well. The main objective is still smash every building in the level, but that's almost where the similarities end. Unlike the arcade game, World Tour does have that story I mentioned before and such has an ending. In the original arcade game you would go from city to city on a set path. World Tour mixes it up by adding in billboards that when smashed will signify that you are taking your World Tour elsewhere. What this means is one minute you could be terrorizing the west coast of the United States. bash a billboard and the next level will see you starting a conquest of Europe. Don't worry though, you will eventually go back and wreck any skipped cities.

    Another new addition to the game is V.E.R.N. (Vern). Vern is a mutant that your mutant can transform into after eating more Scumlabs toxins. Unlike the other mutants, Vern flies around, completely shreds buildings in just a couple hits, and takes out military forces like they're nothing. Speaking of mutants. As I mentioned earlier, the CEO of Scumlabs, Eustace DeMonic, turns himself into a mutant bringing a boss of sorts to the series, which is something the original arcade game lacked. In the original arcade game you were only able to punch buildings. Well this time around you can both punch and kick which opens up a lot of possibilities as far as combating military forces and other players goes. The kick also has a bit of a humorous side to it as you can punt both vehicles and people. Something about punting people and seeing them just splat on the ground is just funny to me considering how sci-fi the game is. Other changes/improvements/what have you include three player mode on the Nintendo 64 as opposed to the two player mode of the NES port of the original game. Multiplayer also has a sort of head to head where you are graded on your destruction of buildings, vehicles, and people eaten.  The game also features larger levels thanks to scrolling. From time to time you'll also come across bonus stages to pat your scores. They really don't serve too much of a purpose, but it does break up the monotony of busting down buildings. Sadly though, there is only one type of bonus level in the game so it does get repetitive.

    These new features were not enough to really grip critics as the game got average at best scores. It was still Rampage in that it still was all about smashing and eating your way through the game. The problem is that World Tour did not do enough to distinguish itself from the original game. The concept and gameplay were nearly identical and while myself and I'm sure other fans of the original enjoyed it, it left many wanting more. Still though, the game sold very well and was a pretty big hit. Kids seemed to really enjoy the game, so it was only a matter of time before Rampage would get it's third installation in it's series. 

    Personally, I think World Tour did do a lot of things half baked. Pretty much all the new features moved the game in the right direction to a point. Vern, kicking, DeMonic, larger cities, an actual story, and a bonus stage were all good to a degree. Many of the cities look similar. Sometimes I could have swear I'm doing the exact same level multiple times. Vern is awesome, but only appears in a few levels and there is no way to unlock him. DeMonic turning into a mutant is cool and all, but overall he's just very underwhelming as he just bounces across the screen. As I mentioned, the bonus level is nice, but repetitive. The story element is there and while I am alllllll for games not having much of a story attached to it (Donkey Kong Country anyone?) seeing Eustace DeMonic smoking his cigar all annoyed upon the completion of each area left me wanting him to at least say something. Honestly, it's weird for me to think this, but kicking is something the game nailed. As I stated earlier, it's funny to kick people around. It's also a good strategic way to deal with certain enemies.... or beating the crap out of your friends... I wouldn't rush out to your nearest retro shop or internet shop of choice to grab this game, but if you enjoy mindless smashing, eating, etc. like I do, then this game is worth a play. It's long like the original, but at least there is an ending and it's an improvement in almost every way.

    With that I would like to wish all of my fellow Americans a very happy Thanksgiving! This blog was a quick look at the first two games in the Rampage series. Stay tuned as Part 2 of this blog will cover even more monster sized mayhem! Thanks for reading! 

NES Remix Thoughts

    The Wii U will probably go down in history as one of Nintendo's biggest flops. The console failed to live up to its expectations, failed to reach the demographic it aimed at, failed to reach many gamers, and failed to really be that insane looking frames per second monster to match up with it's competition. Yes the Wii U had many, many failures and I can go on and on about them despite my personal opinions on the console being very underrated despite it's issues. One of the reasons I say this console is underrated is due to it's small, yet often times impressive library. It is one of those oft forgotten about titles that I want to look at briefly today. The main reason I am looking at a Wii U game is that it is actually just a bunch of NES games cut up and made into various challenges. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the NES Remix!

    The NES Remix Pack is a compilation of both NES Remix Pack 1 and 2. The game is simply a series of challenges from some of Nintendo's greatest classic games including Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, Excitebike, Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, Balloon Fight, The Legend of Zelda, and Kirby's Adventure to name a few. Each game has a number of challenges and upon completion you will be given a rank between one and three stars. The faster you complete a level, the better your ranking. You will also score points towards stamps for the now defunct Miiverse. You gain more points for beating challenges for the first time as well as completing them without failing to meet the requirements once. You get a set number of chances at each challenge before it's game over. As you collect stars you will unlock remix challenges. These are wacky takes on the various NES titles. For example, one challenge sees you playing through the first level of Donkey Kong as Link. Sounds simple right? Problem is as in The Legend of Zelda, Link cannot jump. To make it even tougher this is Link from the start of the game, so you do not have a sword either. Another example of a challenge is playing through a level of Super Mario Bros Mario cannot stop running. Overall the remix challenges add a great deal of well, challenge to the game.

    The difficulty curve to game makes it so you do not have to have any experience playing the original game to pick this pack up. Before you even take on a challenge, there is an optional tutorial for each game that will teach you the basis of the game. Then the first challenge usually involves something very simple. Then the challenges get progressively harder. I think Nintendo did a real good job with the difficulty scale. Some games are certainly easier to master than others and the challenges reflect that. That being said, the gloves are generally off for all the remix challenges. 

    One of the only issues I have with this pack is believe it or not, the controls. This is something that has nothing to do with the game though and for people who never played these games on an NES, it probably isn't an issue. To me I find the Wii U's game pad to be very clunky with this game. For whatever reason I just find the size of the thing to be a bit awkward with this title. I honestly feel the same way about a few other Wii U games such as Bayonetta 2, but that's a whole other story. Luckily there are other controllers such as the original Wii controller that can be used with this pack, which makes life a whole lot easier as a sideways Wiimote is basically an NES controller. 

    There's no real point in focusing on the sound effects or music of the various games. It's all from many classic games and to review the sounds on all of them would take a long time. Long story short is this. These are challenges from some of the best games on the NES. All of these games contain great sound effects and music from the system they were originally designed for.  Same can be said about the graphics. They have all been respectable for what they are for a long long time and as long as you do not look at them and try to compare them to other Wii U titles, you'll agree I would think. 

    Overall I the the NES Remix Pack is a great pickup for any Wii U owner. It has an incredible amount of nostalgia and challenges for those who have played the games before while being friendly enough for new players to be introduced to them. I also can't help but think that the NES Remix Pack was a little bit of a tool in helping boost the sales of virtual console titles. I mean if I had never played The Legend of Zelda and played the NES Remix challenges, I'd be spending the few dollars on it in the e-shop to play the full game. I feel like that had to at least be in the back of Nintendo's heads with this thing. At the end of the day it's a great pack with a bunch of challenges to complete. It is also a real treat to those who like to race through things as the game encourages you to get through the challenges as quickly as possible for max star scores! 

    As always, thanks for reading! This blog was certainly a bit different as I took a look at a game that is kind of retro, but not cause it's on Wii U, but is cause of what it is.... Whatever... Stay tuned!

    

Disturbance in the Balance

    Donkey Kong Country. I've blogged about them. I've blogged about them again. Then I blogged about them. Then I blogged about them some more. Now I blog about them yet again. The Donkey Kong Country series remains my favorite gaming series of all time. Whether it is Rare or Retro Studios at the helm, it always seems like magic is made with the Donkey Kong Country series. This blog will be taking a look how I rank the Donkey Kong Country series from best worst to best. Included in this list will be games with Donkey Kong Country in the title, so the Donkey Kong Land games will not be included in this list nor will none Donkey Kong Country games such as DK Jungle Swing.

Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

    Donkey Kong Country came out on Game Boy Color in an era where if you did not have a Super Nintendo, you did not get to play Donkey Kong Country. The game looks and feels very similar to the Donkey Kong Land games, however it's not. It is a port of Donkey Kong Country, but a poor port. It's a port that had a job in the past, but now it is mostly a pointless remake as Donkey Kong Country would see light on the Game Boy Advance. 

Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Advance)

    Speaking of Donkey Kong Country on Game Boy Advance... Rareware brought Donkey Kong Country to the Game Boy Advance and introduced an entire new generation to the game. The only problem was that in the translation from Super Nintendo to Game Boy Advance, some of the charm of the original was lost. The biggest issues this game faces is screen crunch issues on certain levels and what I like to call slippery gameplay. The control in the Super Nintendo version is so much tighter than this version. Still, this game is still worth playing if you cannot get your hands on the original and it does add some new collectible goodies and what not. 

Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)

    It had been a long time between Donkey Kong Country 3 and Donkey Kong Country returns. This game was Retro Studios first crack at a Donkey Kong Country game and they did a pretty good job with it. They really took what Rare had created and turned it into their own while sticking true to Rare's formula. That said, the game is not without flaws. For one, some players cannot stand the fact that there are motion controls in this game. My only gripe with them is you need to use them to do Donkey Kong's signature roll ability. There's lots of good in this game, but not enough to make it higher on my list here. Still, the game is certainly worth trying out! Awesome levels (for the most part), great gameplay (motion controls aside), and a soundtrack that pays an incredible amount of homage to the original makes this game worth your time. 

Donkey Kong Country 2 (Game Boy Advance)

    By the time Donkey Kong Country 2 came out on the Game Boy Advance Diddy's Kong Quest fell off the face of the Earth. As such the game was just called Donkey Kong Country 2. Nintendo's loss of Rare could also begin being seen as Dixie no longer sports the Rare logo on her hat. Those sad notes aside... Donkey Kong Country 2 is what I call the safest of the three Game Boy Advance remakes. It is very similar to the original and much like the first game, adds a bunch of collectible goodies for you to find. The major issues that plagued the first game such as slippery control were fixed here making for an overall better game. Still though, it pales in comparison to the original in terms of speed, graphics, gameplay, and soundtrack. That being said though, this is a wonderful remake. I know some people are in conflict as to whether or not this is possibly better than the original, but I just don't see that. Either way, this is a very good and safe remake.

Donkey Kong Country Returns (3DS)

    Remember how before I said that motion controls hindered Donkey Kong Country Returns? Well basically here is what I think of the game when you take those away. No, the 3DS game does not look as good as the Wii and it runs at a little bit of a lower framerate, but for me the game is still true to form in this version. Without the gimmick of motion, the game feels more like a traditional Donkey Kong Country. In addition, Retro Studios pulled no punches and actually added an exclusive world into this game. It still has a few issues, but the effort that Retro put into this remake showed me that the series is in good hands. Now if only they could figure out an ending that's not worse than Donkey Kong Country 3's true ending.....

Donkey Kong Country 3 (Game Boy Advance)

    I rank Donkey Kong Country 3 the highest of the handheld games. In fact, there's a tiny, tiny piece of me that sometimes wonders if I like it better than the Super Nintendo version.... a tiny, tiny piece... Rare's last Donkey Kong Country game is nothing short of an appropriate send off. It feels like Donkey Kong Country 3 was remade from the ground up. The soundtrack is all new, there's a brand new world to explore, and sticks very true to the original despite these changes. Personally, I am not huge into collect-a-thons. I mean I love me some Banjo Kazooie, but in a platformer I always felt a couple collectibles were just right. So I am not upset that this game does not include as much collecting as the previous two remakes. The minigames are kinda meh, but the game itself is a fresh take on the Super Nintendo game.

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (Super Nintendo)

    My opinion on this game seems to change every time I play through it. It's never consistent for me. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I just enjoy it. Despite it's flaws such as an overall slower pace than the first two games, Donkey Kong Country 3 remains what I would call a great game. The third tier of levels borders on unfair in terms of difficulty, but in my opinion, that's how it should be. It's not like the game is unfair throughout or anything. It also sports some of the most frustrating Lost World levels in the series. The game is beautiful, plays well, and allows Dixie to really, really shine. The majority of Rareware's people had moved onto projects for the Nintendo 64 by the time this game was being worked on, so it's not a surprise it's not on their level. Still though, it is a classic in it's own right and I think worthy of where I have it on the list. That tiny piece of me says to drop it a spot.

Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo)

    The game that started it all. Rareware burst onto the Super Nintendo scene with this monster of a game. Donkey Kong Country needs no introduction. It's beautiful, it's got an awesome soundtrack, and a ton of character. You make your way all over DK Island and experience a world unlike anything that had ever been seen in a video game. Almost ever level introduced new challenges and new ways of playing. Gone were the days of move right and jump. Exploration had arrived in a platform game as had the start of what I call the greatest platforming series in gaming.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U)

    I never thought I would see the day that a game disrupted my love for the original trilogy. Tropical Freeze is an experience unlike any other. Retro Studios did exactly what Rareware did before them with their first title. As I mentioned in blogs past, Donkey Kong Country Returns was a great framework. It was a great restart of the series with Retro Studios at the helm. The big question though at the time was what would come next, if anything. I remember when the game came out. I didn't have a Wii U just yet, but the rage from the internet was evident. It seemed the majority were displeased by Returns's difficulty in comparison to other platformers on the Wii and even more, people wanted Metroid. I can't blame them. Metroid fans, much like Donkey Kong Country fans were given a middle finger for a long time. So I was hesitant in picking this game up, but holy crap am I glad I did. I have zero idea what everyone was complaining about. Of course now Tropical Freeze is regarded as one of the best in the series, but that was not always the case. The level design, soundtrack, graphics, and gameplay all took what Donkey Kong Country Returns had and turned it into a masterpiece. While I did not get the return of all my beloved animal buddies I did get the return of Dixie Kong and playing with Cranky after all these years was a bonus. 

    This game improved on it's predecessor in every way. Even the enemies, the Snowmads, are far more memorable than the tribe of Tiki guys from Returns. I feel like they are literally just one step below the Kremlings. I love this game after playing it a couple time. It's difficult, it's got a lot to find, but neither of those are bad things. Speaking of not bad things... Unlike Returns where the last world was kinda meh... Volcano themed... I felt like I was playing Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. You make it back to a frozen DK Island and fight your way through enemy territory right up till the final showdown. What's more is as you traverse through this final world, you see things from the previous game in the background. Characters frozen in ice, temples and other buildings snowed over, and the all too familiar DK Treehouse. There's just so much to love about this game. It's biggest downfall is that it was released on the ever controversial "failure", the Wii U.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Super Nintendo)

    After all these years, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest remains my favorite video game of all time. This game went a long way into making me the kind of gamer I am today. I do not gravitate towards first person shooters, I do not gravitate to RPGs, I do not gravitate to fighting games. No, I gravitate towards 2D platformers and a lot of the reason for that goes into the first big one I remember playing, Donkey Kong Country 2. In my opinion this is still the best Donkey Kong Country game in the entire series. While Tropical Freeze looks better (clearly... I mean really? Do people actually say Tropical Freeze is better because of graph.... never mind...), it does not have the consistent speedy gameplay and incredible flow that this game has. This game also boasts the best combination of Kongs out of all the games in Diddy and Dixie Kong. The two are so incredibly different in so many ways, yet both can travel through the game equally as efficiently. Dixie has her advantages, and Diddy has his. It's great like that and something I feel was not present in the first and third games where Donkey Kong and Kiddie seemed outclassed by Diddy and Dixie respectively. 

     Another thing I love about this game is the theme and story. By the end of Donkey Kong Country we had Diddy completely transform from a sidekick to hero in his own right. This game features him and his girlfriend invading the Kremlings home turf. Not only will Diddy and Dixie invade, they will eventually achieve their goal of rescuing Donkey Kong from Kaptain K. Rool and do even more than that. Yes I said Kaptain K. Rool. Did I mention the main theme in the game is pirates? I mean come on, reptiles with eye patches and peg legs and striped shorts. Incredible!

    At the end of the day I still love each and every game in the Donkey Kong Country series. None of them are bad games. Even the Game Boy Color game, while incredibly dated now, was still acceptable for what it was when it came out. I never thought a game would come out again that captivated me the way that the original trilogy did, but Tropical Freeze blew my mind and now after playing it a few times I can say it's my second favorite in the series. It's not a game I will pick up and play non stop as I still prefer the style of Rareware's trilogy, but it is one that has left a lasting impression and will be revisited often. 

    This list is strictly my opinion. There is no fact to any of it other than all of these games are good if not great in their own ways. For me, there will probably never be another Donkey Kong Country 2 and I am okay with that. It's a once in a lifetime game to me and it's a game I can talk about and never get bored playing. Both Rare and Retro Studios have created something truly amazing. Rareware's trilogy got me into gaming in a way I never expected. That trilogy continues to keep me into gaming on a grand scale and Retro's duo has been an incredible supplement to the feast of Rareware. I'll continue to play these games as long as I can. Rest assured this is not the last you'll hear about them on this blog (granted you won't hear much about Returns or Tropical Freeze). Thanks for reading as always!

Diddy Kong Racing Revisited

    Have you ever had a game that you know isn't the most popular and often times is forgotten about when talking about the great games of a console? That one game that you have played time and time again yet a lot of people say that it's just not that good. I have a few of those games. One of them is Diddy Kong Racing. I know I've blogged I think three times about this game already, but now being fresh off yet another run through the game, I find myself wanting to talk more about it. Some of this stuff I sure is repeats from my previous blogs, but some should be new too.

****Possible Spoilers Ahead****

    I've said it once and I will say it again. Diddy Kong Racing is one of the best racing games on the console. I'd put it in the top two along with Mario Kart 64, but who wins the crown really depends on what's going on. If it's just me playing or me and a friend playing. I give the crown to Diddy Kong Racing, but when it comes to four player madness, I have to give it to Mario Kart 64. The games are just so different. Both are fantastic, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. I find myself more enthralled with Diddy Kong Racing thanks to it's single player modes, characters, story, vehicles, and honestly the weapon system. I've always felt that the game required a higher level of skill than Mario Kart 64 did to succeed. This rings especially true if you are a fan of heavyweights

    This time around I took a break from my lightweight favoritism and explored some middleweight and heavyweight options. All I can say is the difference in weight class is immense. In Mario Kart 64 I main Bowser and Toad. Two complete opposite weight classes. I play them the same way. Foot on the gas and power sliding. It's a totally different game here though between playing Tiptup and Bumper or Tiptup and Drumstick. It's such a big learning curve and one I'm going to keep working on now because the speed of these heavyweights is great. I can only imagine that becoming comfortable with the lackluster handling that the heavyweights have will improve my skills in the game all around. At the end of the day I wound up switching back to Tiptup to take care of a variety of different tracks as well as boss battles. My extra exploration in the game led me to take on a challenge I never bothered to do before. Unlocking T.T.

    Unlocking T.T. is probably one of the hardest things in a racing game on the Nintendo 64. What you have to do to unlock him is beat all of his times in Tracks Mode. Before you can race him though, you need to beat a certain time on each track. Upon beating that time T.T. will challenge you on that track. In order to beat him you need to be significantly better than the time that you needed to make him appear. Some courses this was no big deal. Even in Future Fun World there was a track or two that I felt no pressure. Other tracks like Crescent Island and Darkmoon Caverns found me beating him by the skin of my teeth. I wish the game showed a time comparison after the race. On some of these I would have loved to had seen how close I was to not beating him. With each failure though I could feel myself getting better. I kind of have a new appreciation for Tracks Mode now. The tracks are nowhere near as complicated as the tracks in Mario Kart 64, but I feel like I get more of a reward from practicing on them. I never really felt like I completely mastered a track until now. I felt like I was able master Mario Kart's tracks just by playing 150cc. For whatever reason I could not do that in Diddy Kong Racing.

    At the end of the day, this latest run through of Diddy Kong Racing to me was really just a ton of fun. I did something new with the game in unlocking T.T. and really had zero complaints. Even the silver coin challenges were fun, which a lot of people would not agree with. I don't know if it's because I know where they are at this point or what. I still feel like this is one of the best racing games on the system and in a lot of ways I do think it is the best. I get people's issues with it. Believe me, it is not a perfect game. It has a few issues here and there and it's difficulty can honestly be a bit of a turn off for some people and the less chaotic multiplayer is not as entertaining as other racing games on the system. If you are looking for a good, challenging racing game with some hidden goodies scattered about, look no further than this game. It is worth every second of playtime and will reward practice on a level not seen in other racing games.


   

Nintendo 64 Joystick Replacement and Repair Thoughts Part 2

    The Nintendo 64 controller is easily one of the most controversial controllers in gaming. From it's awkward shape to it's joystick it seems like many people have comments and complaints about the design of this controller. To add fuel to many people's fire, the controller's joystick has proven that it will wear out over time rendering the controller either very difficult to use, if not impossible. In my last blog I went over a few different techniques that can help you fix a troubled controller and help slow down that deadly wear and tear. Today I'll be looking a bit at some of the available alternatives to fixing a joystick.

    The first, most common, and obviously the easiest alternative to fixing a joystick is to simply buy a  new Nintendo 64 controller. These controllers can be found still sealed in their original packaging on Ebay. However, they are by no means cheap. These controllers can go for well over three hundred dollars if they are still sealed in their original packaging. However, you can find used Nintendo 64 controllers on Ebay for thirty to forty dollars pretty easily. In doing this though it is a bit of a gamble as to what you get since you don't know the condition of the joystick till you get your hands on it. Still many Ebay listings with good sticks will mention that the stick is in good shape. Personally, the alternative that has worked the best for me is visiting the local flea markets and garage sales. I managed to get my hands on two controllers that have excellent sticks for ten dollars a piece. You can also visit your trusted retro game store and talk to the owner to see if any available Nintendo 64 controllers have stick issues. One store I would say to avoid is Gamestop. You can buy Nintendo 64 controllers on their website however many people seem to end up with off brand products or controllers with loose sticks, so buyer beware on that one.

    Speaking of off brand. It's the year 2017 and there are a slew of third party controllers out there. These products you can find at most retro shops, Ebay, and Amazon for cheaper than you can find an official Nintendo 64 controller. My experience (albeit limited) has never been great with these controllers. For one I found that they joysticks wear out much faster than on the official ones. On some controllers I ran into dead zones where I'd push the stick to a position and my character on screen would just stop. That was super frustrating in games like Super Mario 64 and Super Smash Brothers. I also had an issue at one point with an Old Skool brand controller where right out of the packaging the controller though I was moving my character left.... Problem is the controller was not in my hand. Tried to unplug it and plug it back in and the same thing happened despite the controller being straight. Overall if I were to ever go for a third party Nintendo 64 controller I would bite the bullet and go for what is called a Hori Pad. The Hori Pad was available only in Japan. It is the only officially licensed Nintendo 64 controller made by a third party. The shape is totally different as seen in the photo below and the joystick is more similar to that of the Nintendo Gamecube in design.

The only downside of this pad is since it was never available in North America, it's price is pretty high. They can be found on Ebay for generally sixty to eighty dollars. I would say this is the number one replacement controller if you have the cash to throw at it. 

    I get that not everyone wants to give up on their old controllers and for those people (like me) you can repair or replace individual parts. Many parts are available online and in the case of joysticks, you can find a couple different ones too. The first is the classic OEM style that is in the Nintendo 64 controller. The vast majority of these you will see are made by third parties. The only first party ones are those that were removed from other controllers. The third party replacement OEM joysticks are a mixed bag. Again, my experience with them is limited, but I ran into a couple problems when using them. Much like with the third party controller, the third party joystick seemed to wear out faster than the original. Another issue I faced occurred when installing the stick. For some reason the housing was a little bit big for the controller so I had to sand it down a bit. I also had to file down the connector into the controller slightly. Not a big deal, but it was a tad frustrating. Another issue was that it was not as precise as the original. Now I get that it's third party and I shouldn't expect a ton, but sometimes is was great. Sometimes it was overly sensitive I thought. Sometimes well... Dead zone. I'd say these sticks are good for general use. I wouldn't use them for any kind of serious gameplay. No tournaments, no high score hunting, no speed running, but just playing around I would totally recommend them. I'd also say they're good if you're looking for a cheap replacement if you do not use your system much.

    While I might recommend the third party OEM style sticks, my favorite of the third parties is the Gamecube style sticks that have come out in recent years. I currently have half of my controllers with these installed. They are very strange joysticks though. If you have a Gamecube controller, you know what the stick looks like. It fits perfectly into the controller and feels really good. The literal only issues I've had is sensitivity issues in some games. For example. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time I had zero problems. Newer versions of these sticks fixed issues that involved rotating the stick, so the spin attack works fine. That being said, when I play Goldeneye 007, I find precise aiming to be difficult as the stick seems over sensitive. That being said, I play Conker's Bad Fur Day and I have no problems again. It's a game to game thing I feel like. Right now I'm using this stick for games that really take a toll on a joystick. Mario Party, Paper Mario, and Super Smash Brothers are three that come to the top of my head. Games that aren't so rough I stick with the originals. Goldeneye, Starfox 64, and other games that require some accuracy I stick with the original. Still though for casual gameplay the Gamecube style sticks are my go to.... Especially with Super Smash Brothers. 

    At the end of the day I don't think any third party joystick or controller (with the exception of the Hori Pad) stacks up with the original. I think the best way to go about continuing Nintendo 64 gaming is maintaining original controllers and sticks through repair and maintenance. I understand those things are not for everyone, but for anyone who truly loves this system, it's games, and even it's controllers, it would be worth while to read some techniques in repair and maintenance and even watch some how to videos on Youtube. It really makes a world of difference and has brought new life to my Nintendo 64. 

    Thank you for reading this blog. This blog and the previous on repairing Nintendo 64 controllers are meant to provoke thought in you, the reader about what to do with your troubled controller. I do not guarantee that you will experience the same things that I have with these replacements or repairs. I hope everything works out for you and you can enjoy your Nintendo 64 console as much as the day you got it.  

Nintendo 64 Joystick Replacement and Repair Thoughts Part 1

    Hey everyone, hope all is well. Today's blog is a bit different as I will be looking at Nintendo 64 controller joystick repair. Over the past couple months, my beloved Nintendo 64 controllers saw their joysticks significantly deteriorate. They had been loose for a long time, but after some intense Starfox 64 play, they seemed to be pretty much shot. So I dove into the world of replacement joysticks. You can find replacement sticks almost anywhere. Ebay, Amazon, and even some retro game stores carry replacement joysticks. At first it seemed a bit overwhelming, but after some research and trial and error I can say that I am quite happy with my discoveries.

    Since I've been doing a lot of work on my old consoles and games, I figured I'd give a shot at fixing my busted up N64 joysticks. If you want to do the same there is some things to consider. First is what is going on with the controller. In my case it was very loose joysticks. Second and far less important is what caused this. Normal wear over the years can be an answer or a game called Mario Party can be its own answer. Regardless the reason, just keep it in the back of your mind for now. To get inside the controller all you need is a small Philips head screwdriver. Make sure all screws are removed before trying to open the controller. There are two hidden screw in the area where the rumble pack/memory card/ transfer pack goes in so be sure to get them too. once opened you'll see the joystick compartment is screwed into the controller. Unscrew the three silver screws, but not the black screw yet. Follow the wires to where they connect to the board. Work the connector at the end of the wires out of the port it is plugged into. I used the flat edge of a knife and just slowly worked it out. The joystick should now be free from the controller.

    Now that you have that out you can go ahead and unscrew the little black screw. The joystick front will pop open, but you'll have to gently unclip the clips in the back to get the whole unit open. From here there are two methods that I tried to fix my issue. The first was a much shorter term fix. Before doing this though look at the bottom half of the unit. You'll see a white bowl, a little computer piece, a black cradle looking piece of plastic laying across and dipping into the bowl, and two wheel looking pieces at the top (under the computer piece) and right side of the bowl. Remember how the bowl sits in the housing and remember how the cradle piece is sitting. Now for the root of the problem. Upon opening the housing you will probably notice a good amount of white powder. Believe it or not, that powder used to be part of the bottom of the joystick and the bowl. It just grinds down over time and games like Mario Party and Super Smash Brothers take a real toll on these joysticks. The ground up plastic can make a joystick feel crunchy as you use it as it takes away the smoothness of the inside and basically clogs it up. Clean out the dust, but do not inhale it... Also keep the two wheel pieces as untouched and clean as possible. They're vital to a working joystick. You can remove and clean up the little cradle piece too. Check that piece for signs of wear and tear. None of mine had any issues with the cradle pieces. once you are done with that put the bottom of the joystick housing back together. Now for the top.

    You should now be looking at the stick itself. You should see another little black plastic piece that is prevented from popping off the stick by the bottom of the stick itself (what I call the hammer. The hammer should also have a small little ball shape in the middle of it so notice that too) Then you should see a plastic ring, a spring, then finally the top of the joystick housing. Turn the black plastic piece so it pops off the stick. Be careful not to loose the plastic ring that will probably fall right off. Clean up the black plastic piece and the stick itself. Also check the top of the housing for plastic dust and what not(I used a little water on a Q-Tip followed by a lint free cloth). Now with your housing  and pieces cleaned up, here's where things get different depending on which of the two techniques I tried you want to use. Both of these techniques involves trying to fill space that has been created by the plastic grinding away. These joysticks were poorly designed, but are quite precise, so I feel like trying to fix them is worth the time and effort. The first one is a short term solution.

    This one is commonly called the tape method and it is quick to do, but has a big downside that I'll get to. First get yourself a roll of tape. The best tape to use for this is something like Scotch tape or some other thinner type of tape. Duck tape is too thick. Now for the tricky part. Get a pair of good scissors and cut two strips of tape. The length may vary, but I aimed for around 5mm with a with of 3mm on my very worn sticks. Take a look at the stick. You'll see the part where your thumb rests, a ball, a small neck, and then the hammer. Tightly wrap your first piece of tape around the neck between the ball and hammer. Now you may want to put the top part of the joystick all back together before doing the second part, so hopefully you paid attention to how the thing is put together. If not an the order is stick goes into the top part of housing and rotates so it locks. Then the larger circle on the spring goes against the underside of the top piece of the housing. The little plastic ring rests on the top of the spring. Getting the black piece back on requires you to push down on the spring. You should be able to have the hammer go through the middle. Once you see that rotate the black piece so it and the hammer look like a funky cross. The ends of the black piece should rest on the plastic ring quite well with the end pieces hanging off. Back to your tape. Take the second piece of tape and tightly wrap it around the hammer. Now assemble the joystick. Keep in mind that the cradle resting in the bowl and the black piece attached to the stick should form a + inside the bowl with the up/downaxis being near the wheel under the computer parts. If it doesn't fit snug, you may need to rotate the black piece attached to the joystick and the stick itself. Be careful it does not unlock otherwise you'll probably have to reassemble the top part of the housing. After you have screwed in the black screw test it out. It should be less loose than it was before. In this case, bulking up the hammer can eliminate the space, but in some cases (like 1 of my controllers), it's not enough due to the sheer amount of eroded plastic. Depending on how much plastic has been eaten away, you may need more than or less tape than I used. As I mentioned before, this is a short term fix. The tape will wear out pretty quickly. That is really the biggest downfall to this method. The tape can start coming off inside the housing and get to a point where you must open it up and replace the tape. That can happen well before the tape is actually worn out. The plus side is for short term use, this technique can close the empty space enough that the stick will feel much tighter. The tape around the neck will also help keep the stick propped up in the housing if the black piece has worn down too. For long term use though I have two things that I'm doing.

    First of all I happened to stumble upon two Nintendo 64 controllers at a flea market recently. These two have joysticks in excellent shape so I started doing an easy maintenance on them. What you'll need for this is a screwdriver and some kind of plastic safe grease. Personally I am using white lithium grease, but I hear that ceramic grease works very well and lasts longer. As I mentioned before, the wear and tear on these joysticks largely comes from the bowl getting ground up into plastic dust. While putting an end to that wear is not possible to my knowledge, there is a way to drastically slow it down. What you will want to do is take apart the controller and joystick housing as described above. There is not much of a need to take apart the top of the housing though other than making sure it's clean. What you'll want to do is use a toothpick, Q-Tip, or other small object and grease certain areas of the housing. The most important thing in greasing is this. DO NOT GET ANY GREASE ON EITHER OF THE WHEEL PARTS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BOWL. IT WILL SERIOUSLY DAMAGE IT. Areas you do want to grease include the inside of the bowl (but not too much as it can spill out and onto the wheel part), The bottom and top of the black plastic cradle piece inside the bowl, where that plastic cradle sits on the edge of the bowl, the hammer or the joystick, and the little ball at the bottom of the hammer. Doing this has made my joysticks nice and smooth again and is an important part to the more long term solution. What it does for the controller is reduce the grind of the joystick and bowl, which is an amazing thing. I plan on checking on the grease after a month has passed to see if it needs reapplying. Again, I hear ceramic grease lasts longer. From what I've seen and read this is a great easy to do maintenance that will keep your original joystick working great longer. However, it is only a preventative and will not fix a joystick.

    I've heard of a few different ways to go about more of a long term fix for the wiggly joystick. I've heard of ways of altering the stick itself if the little ball at the end is overly worn, but haven't had a need to do it yet, so I can't share my experiences with that. The way that I have gone about repairing these sticks with a long term approach in mind is as follows. Make note that this is not a fast fix and patience and some precision is required to do the job right. If you ever happen to get your hands on a newish Nintendo 64 controller take a look at the white bowl compared to that of one with a loose joystick. You will easily see that the bowl from the controller with the loose stick appears deeper. That is where the problem is and bringing the bowl back to it's former self is the goal. For this fix I used some plastic safe epoxy, a toothpick, a thin tipped sharpie, a dremel, sandpaper, a Q-Tip, and a lot of patience.

    What you will want to do first is take apart the controller and joystick as described above. Once you have the white bowl removed from the bottom part of the housing you'll want to think about how much epoxy you are going to need. You should know how loose your joystick is and if you have a stick that is in good shape, it's not a bad idea to kind of eyeball it. Apply a small amount of epoxy into the bowl. I used the toothpick and Q-Tip to do this. You still want to bowl to be concave in the middle. How much you need is going to depend on how messed up the bowl is. Be careful not to get any on those wheel parts! Let the epoxy harden. Mine was good to go in about 4 hours. Now is where patience becomes a virtue. Attach a small amount of sandpaper to the end of the sharpie and smooth out the epoxy by gently sanding. Don't go too much yet. You're just trying to smooth it out for now. Reassemble the joystick housing only. See how the stick is. Is it still loose? If so you'll want to carefully add more and wait. Does it get stuck? Not a big deal. What you need to do here is either slowly sand down the epoxy or carefully use a dremel at low speed to do the same. Sand it again afterwords to smooth it out. If it's still getting stuck you can actually sand the bottom of the cradle a little bit without hurting it. If you go too much it will snap so only do this if you feel confident. Once the joystick feels good to you, grease it up as described above. This will not only slow the wear and tear again, but it will help the hammer slide on the epoxy better. I've used this method on two joysticks now and both are working great.

    I've heard of other ways of doing the longer term fix such as super glue instead of epoxy and I'm sure that works fine too, but I found the epoxy pretty easy to work with. It's a shame that these joysticks have the issues that they have, but at least there are ways of making them last longer and even repairing them. I honestly don't know why Nintendo didn't have the insides of these things greased to begin with, but it is what it is. I can't guarantee that these methods will work for everyone and I do not recommend the epoxy fix to anyone who does not know what they are doing with these joysticks. I did these repairs about 2 weeks ago and so far everything has been working great. At the time I had no intention of doing a blog on it, so sorry that I don't have any pictures or video to help. The good news is both the tape and epoxy fixes can be found on Youtube if you need a visual guide. My next blog will be looking at some other alternatives to repairing that I stumbled across in my quest to revive my Nintendo 64's controllers! Thanks for reading!
 

Update

Greetings everyone. I'm doing two small blogs today. This first one is an update as to why I have been absent. I had every intent on moving full steam ahead with the horror blog series I was so, so excited to do since the summer. Sadly I am not going to be able to keep up with it. I am dealing with some things in life right now and need to focus in on those things more than I have been. It's pretty personal, so I'm not going to be getting into it here at all. This update is basically just me saying that I'm alive and I do intend on continuing this blog whenever I have to time to do so. I do hope that a time will come soon where I can go back to blogging how I was, but we will see.

So moving forward I will be continuing as I was prior to trying to start Horror Blogs. Perhaps this is something I can attempt to do again next year, but we will see on that as well. Everything is kind of up in the air. Thank you all for your patience, thanks for reading, and just in general, thank you!

Horror Blogs Part 1: A Nightmare on Elm Street

    Hello everyone and welcome to the first blog in my Horror Blogs series. This series will feature game reviews, thoughts, and experiences involving games of the horror genre. There are a ton of games that fall into this genre from the Atari through the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64. There is no way I will be able to tackle them all between now and Halloween, so chances are good that next year I'll be doing this blog series again with different games. This series is not just going to be a review series. It will be a series in which I share my thoughts and experiences on the games that I am looking at. In some cases I may even bring some comparisons to a games respective movie if it has one. Speaking of games based on horror movies, the first game I will be taking a look at is based off the popular movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

****MOVIE AND GAME SPOILERS AHEAD****

    One two Freddy's coming for you.... A Nightmare on Elm Street on the Nintendo Entertainment System was unleashed in North America in October of 1990. Six years earlier, Wes Craven wowed audiences with a horror movie called A Nightmare on Elm Street. The plot of the first movie in a nutshell is that a child killer by the name of Fred Krueger gets killed by the parents of Elm Street. Despite being killed, Freddy is able to appear in the dreams of the children of Elm Street where he can do whatever he wants with them, including killing them. If Freddy kills a kid in their dream, they die in the real world in the same fashion. For example, the first teenager to die gets cut up by Freddy and thrown around. As Freddy is doing this in her dreams, the damage is being done to her in the real world. This style, for the most part, is what dominates the Nightmare on Elm Street movie franchise. The question is, how did it transfer into the game?

    That's a topic that everyone has their own opinion on, and here is mine. In the game you play as one of the teenagers on Elm Street and you're task is to search the houses, school, etc of Elm Street in search of Freddy's bones. On the top of the screen there is a sleep meter. As you play the game the meter falls and eventually you fall asleep. In the dream world the game continues as usual until you hear an 8-bit rendering of Freddy's song from the movies. When the song ends Freddy attacks. If you manage to fend him off, the game continues as normal. While the sleep meter naturally drains, you can replenish it by finding coffee, one of the things the teens in the movies continually make use of to stay awake. While in the dream world you can find a boom box to wake you up. I guess that is supposed to simulate an alarm clock or something. Not sure...

    I think it's a pretty good system that the game has as far as the transition from awake to asleep. In the movies it's so seemless that you can't even really tell when the characters slip into a dream until it is obvious they're in one. Beyond that, the game runs into a challenge. As you wander Elm Street and it's many buildings you run into a lot of well, lackluster enemies. Some of these enemies include snakes, bats, rats, and Frankenstein's monsteresque zombies. I feel like these types of enemies were overly common in older horror games, so I guess it works. In the dream world the enemies are similar, but some of them gain Freddy heads or look simply creepier. Even though they are lackluster I feel like I can give it a bit of a pass because in the movies, Freddy is literally the sole enemy so any additional enemies in the game wouldn't be the same as the movies. I mean I guess they could have had like random street thugs or something, but the typical creepy animal enemies and zombie looking guys work just fine.

    Where the game lacks the most I think is in it's music department. The sound effects of getting hit and what not are alright. It's the NES so I don't expect a whole lot, but outside of the opening screen I have no idea where they were going with the music here. If you've ever watched A Nightmare on Elm Street, you know that the music is so haunting and creepy that it can send chills down your spine. Well, the music in the game is pretty much the exact opposite. It is generally upbeat. At times it tries to be more creepy, such as during boss battles, but it sounds more like an underground level in a Batman game or something like that. Whatever it is, it does not sound like music that should be in a Nightmare on Elm Street game. There is one point where the music fits perfectly though. If you stay in the dream world too long Freddy's song will start playing. It's actually a pretty cool 8-bit rendition and while it may not have vocals, it still gives that feeling of desperation to wake up.

    I find it interesting that this game is called simply A Nightmare on Elm Street. Based on that title you would be led to think that the game is based off the first movie. In reality though I find that it has more in common with the third movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. The first movie featured one main protagonist in the form of Nancy Thompson, but Dream Warriors featured a small group of teenagers that Nancy was mentoring in controlling their dreams to combat Freddy. In the NES game you can play with up to four people. Yes, four people in an NES game playing at the same time.  Another interesting note is that during Dream Warriors, Nancy's father aids in an effort to round up Freddy's remains at the town car dump. The main objective in the buildings, as I mentioned before is to round up Freddy's bones. There is also a junkyard that the player ventures into as well in the game. The difference here is that in the game you burn Freddy's remains in the school rather than bury them in the junkyard. Perhaps the most interesting note though takes place in the dream world of both the game and Dream Warriors. In Dream Warriors, the teens, despite being in Freddy's world find a way to gain dream powers. The game is the same as the teens are able to find different powers in the game. All of this pushes me in the direction of this game actually being based on the third movie as opposed to the first. Not sure why they just named it A Nightmare on Elm Street, but whatever.

    So overall I have to say that I like A Nightmare on Elm Street a lot. Is it the best horror game? No. Does it pay good homage to the movie it's named after? I think it plays more to the third movie in the series. I also think that a different, creepier music score, at least in the dream world, would have made for a much better atmosphere. I think the gameplay is pretty straight forward, the controls are responsive to the point where I never really had an issue, and the boss battles, while generally following a pattern are certainly something I could see Freddy doing. I think the sleep meter is fine and the transition from the real world to dream world and back again, are all fine. They take a few seconds, but it isn't really annoying or game breaking. Just enough time to take a deep breath is all. At the end of the day the game I think sits in that category of an alright game. It doesn't do anything spectacular for the time and it really doesn't do much wrong either.

    One final word on this game is it's developer. While LJN was the publisher, and the game is widely known as an LJN game, Rare actually developed it. This is one of several games for the Nintendo Entertainment System that Rare quietly went about making back when they're biggest claim to fame, or infamy was Battletoads.

    Thank you for reading. I know this blog was in a bit of a different style so I apologize if it wasn't what you were looking for. Don't worry though, Horror Blogs will continue and the next game that I will be taking a look at is a bit of a revisit, Clock Tower.

 

Opinion: Pokemon: Which Generation Rules Part 2: The Pokemon

Hello everyone and welcome to part two of a blog that takes a look at the generation of Pokemon that I believe rules them all, generation two! Last time I looked at the games that came out in this generation in regards to what they brought to the series and why I love them so much. Today will be a continuation of that blog as I take a look at some of the more influential Pokemon that came out in that generation. Before looking at those Pokemon I want to just reiterate one of the biggest changes in these games was the introduction of two new types, Dark and Steel. Today these two types are quite powerful when combined with other types such as Psychic or Ghost. The combinations have gotten pretty crazy including the Dark/Ghost typing that literally has no weakness. Fortunately though the only couple of Pokemon with that typing are not that crazy to deal with. In generation two though, the Steel and Dark types were a bit more tame. That being said I may address a Pokemon or two that had it's type changed from Red/Blue/Green/Yellow to Gold/Silver/Crystal. So without further delay, lets look at some of the more interesting Pokemon that generation two brought to the game.

#81 Magnemite/ #82 Magneton

    In the first generation, Magenmite and Magneton were both pure electric types. They were weak to ground moves, resisted electric and flying, but everything else did normal damage to them. Being the first Pokemon to undergo a type change (and the only until the fifth generation where Rotom gained another form allowing for a new type) Magneton and Magnemite gained several resistances and a couple more weaknesses as well. It became even more weak to ground, which in generation two where abilities did not yet exist, was it's ultimate weakness. In addition to ground it became weak to fire and fighting as well. The trade off though is that it became totally immune to poison while resisting every other type with the exception Dark, Water, and Ghost type attacks. This significantly changed the way that Magneton was viewed and for me personally it pushed it to my go to electric type thanks to all those new resistances combined with a now sturdy defense and great special attack. 

The Starters

    I just want to note something about the starters in this game. The evolved forms of Chikorita (Grass), Totodile (Water), and Cyndaquil (Fire) all maintain the basic grass, water, and fire typing. This means the Gold/Silver/Crystal are the only games in which all three starters have one type and do not gain another. I just find that as a fun fact as every other generation has at least one starter that either starts with a second type or gains one as it evolves. 

#169 Crobat 

    Crobat is very interesting for a couple of reasons. On reason is that numerically, it is the first of the generation two Pokemon whose previous evolutions are from generation one. Crobat evolves from Golbat, but not by traditional leveling means. In the last blog I talked about how you could get Pokemon to like you more through a few different means. Well, once Golbat likes you a ton and levels up, it will now evolve into Crobat. The effort to raise Zubat and Golbat pay off huge here as Crobat is one of the fastest Pokemon in the game and can cause serious problems if left unchecked. Despite it's speed though it does still have the same weakish typing of poison and flying which means electric, psychic, rock, and ice all wreck it's day. At least ground types can't hit it...

The Babies

    

    I feel like starting with generation three there were just some Pokemon that just seemed like the creators ran out of ideas or something. That being said, generation two had a few Pokemon, that while cute and fun, just never really appealed to me. That being said, these Pokemon do serve a purpose in the greater Pokemon story since breeding was introduced in this game. I am talking about the baby Pokemon. Yes, Pichu, Elekid, Magby, and the rest are all cute, but outside of them being able to gain egg moves through specific breeding combinations, they really will never be the go to Pokemon. I guess that doesn't matter much since they evolve and in some cases those baby egg moves can be quite powerful. 

#196 Espeon and #197 Umbreon

    

    Gold/Silver/Crystal brought us two new evolutions of Eevee. The way you could evolve your Eevee into Umbreon or Espeon depended not on which stone you used, but what time of day you leveled it up with max happiness. If Eevee evolved during the day, it would become Espeon. During the night, Umbreon. Umbreon got the privilege of becoming one of the first Dark types, while Espeon joined a group of already strong Psychic Pokemon. Both are still incredibly popular in both competitive play as well as casual play alike. While Espeon focuses more on speed and attacks, Umbreon can become a tank capable of incredible stall and effect damage from poison and confusion. As straight Psychic and Dark types, the two only run into a couple weaknesses. Espeon gets put down by Ghost, Bug, and Dark types while Umbreon has a tough time holding up against Fighting, Bug, and as of Pokemon X and Y, Fairy. Speaking of Umbreon, it is totally immune to Psychic attacks making it a pretty big counter to Espeon. Odd how that turned out. Either way though, both are always an awesome option in and Generation two team!

#208 Steelix

      The first time I saw Steelix I went into a panic. This thing I thought meant serious business. Then I calmed down and realized that at the end of the day, Steelix just looks really cool. It's the evolved form of Onyx and much like it's previous evolution, has glaring problems. First off, Steelix has an odd typing of Ground/Steel. While the Steel typing removed it's weakness to grass, it was only replaced by fire. It also picked up a weakness to fighting. The combination of Ground and Steel did give it complete immunity to both poison and electric, but in these games, there were not many effective poison moves to begin with. Steelix was and is still great on defense, but much like Onyx, doesn't deliver the attacks it looks like it should. Nonetheless, Steelix is certainly a Pokemon that everyone remembers first appearing in Gold/Silver/Crystal. 

#212 Scizor

    Both Steelix and Scizor actually evolve from their previous evolutions in a new manner that debuted in the second generation of Pokemon games. In order to evolve Onyx into Steelix, or Scyther into Scizor, you needed to trade the respective Pokemon while it was holding a metal coat. Unlike Steelix, Scizor was and still is one hundred percent worth the effort in obtaining. It keeps Scyther's Bug typing, but adds Steel to the mix. This strong typing bears weakness to only fire. It's surprising speed and power along with a pretty good defense has made Scizor a force to be reckoned with since these games were released. 

#227 Skarmory and #242 Blissey

    Few combinations of Pokemon are as famous as the duo of Skarmory and Blissey. Right from the first time these two Pokemon were seen they had a solid purpose. Defense. These two on the same team used to be nothing short of a nightmare. Skarmory, with it's Steel/Flying type had one of the best defense stats in the game and boasted eight resistances (nine today) and immunity from both Ground and Poison. Access to Curse, Whirlwind, and Drill Peck made this bird very hard to deal with. On that same page Blissey boasts one of the best Special Defense stats in the game while having one of the highest HP totals in the game as well. Blissey has access to moves such as Heal Bell that help the team while also able to heal itself with Softboiled. Throw something like Toxic on it and it is a very large wall that can be a nightmare. Switching back and forth between the two given the situation can be overwhelming. Today their uses have dropped a bit, but both Pokemon are still far from useless.

The Legendaries

    To wrap up this portion of the blog I just want to mention the legendary Pokemon in this game. While Raikou, Suicune, and Entei are basically dog versions of the legendary birds, they do have something special about them. These were the first roaming legendary Pokemon. They would randomly run about the world map. Running into them was pretty much up to chance. In addition to them we have Celebi, which is basically this game's version of Mew, and the two new legendary birds, Lugia and Ho-oh. Ho-oh is another fire-flying type and is the Pokemon that Ash sees at the end of the first episode of the anime. Lugia on the other hand is known as the guardian of the sea and had a major role in Pokemon the movie 2000. In the game it boasts a strong special defense and defense, making it virtually the perfect single Pokemon wall. That is something that has remained fairly consistent to this day.

    Well there you have it. Those are what I think are some of the most noteworthy Pokemon that were introduced or fixed for Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal. I'm sure there are others I did not mention that had an impact as well, but these are the ones I remember the most and in some cases are still the ones I gravitate to. With that being said I just want to say one final thing.

    Pokemon is a series that has continued to expand and grow. Is generation two the best? I think it is personally, but I honestly can't say that that's fact. Other generations brought all kinds of new stuff to the table. In fact Pokemon has become quite complicated over the years and now things like EV training and IV breeding are huge deals and new forms and mega evolutions seem to pop up everywhere. For me though, if I had to pick one last Pokemon game to play it would be one of these three. With a fantastic story, awesome new innovations from the original, and a slew of really cool new Pokemon, Gold, Silver, and Crystal are the generation of Pokemon that in my opinion, rules them all. 

    As always, thanks for reading. I love the Pokemon series of games as a whole so be sure to check back for more Pokemon blogs in the future. For now though I am prepared to begin my Horror Marathon! Expect the first of these blogs to be out around the middle of the month and for them to be pretty regular from there on. The first game I will be taking a look at is A Nightmare on Elm Street for the Nintendo Entertainment System!