Duck Tales

A good old fashioned platformer with a legendary reputation on the NES. Based on the exploits of Scrooge McDuck, he travels all over the place stealing treasure, killing natives and selling the land he conquered. A bit dark in retrospect, but it's lots of fun.

Once again, Capcom gives you a stage select screen.  

It controlled oh so smooth. You can walk around, use your cane as a pogo-stick, jump, and use your cane as a golf club. The pogo bounce is the best move in the whole game; it kills most enemies and will bounce you over most obstacles. I often bounced non-stop for parts of the levels. And the developers were aware of the pogo's awesomeness; certain obstacles will only hit you if you are dumb enough to bounce into them. It worked sooo well.

except in the snow.

But you really have to play it to see the greatness that is duck tales. So here.

That was the moon level. If you liked the music, you aren't alone. That tune was on ScrewAttacks top 10 video game music themes. Also, brentallfloss did a "What if _____ had lyrics?" for this song. Its quite hilarious.

Difficulty (2)

I think I may be obsessed with difficulty. Well, this will focus on modern games. Buckle in because it's gonna be a long ride.

Game difficulty has seen a resurgence of late. Most games are still being designed so younger gamers have a chance of beating them (Nintendo is guilty as hell of this), and the result is that older, more skilled gamers feel a little sidelined. But many games include options to turn up difficulty and some just un-apologetically kick your ass. So I am going to break down how different genres make themselves difficult and accessible at the same time.

Ebay

Yesterday, I won a bid on Ebay for a copy of Jet Grind Radio. It cost me 13.50, including shipping. This is the first time I have ever bought anything on Ebay, let alone a game. It prompted me to post about what I think about buying old games and clarifying my position on emulators.

I've mentioned this one before

I've never owned a Dreamcast, but I played this game at a friends home. Now I've said before that I never owned what would be considered a "classic" console; my first system was a Playstation. If I wanted to play old video games they way they are meant to be played, I would have to spend several hundred dollars buying the systems and accruing the games I want to play. And that's just the basics, some more popular games can run several hundred dollars by themselves on Ebay. The guy I bought Jet Grind Radio from was also selling a copy of Earthbound for roughly $200.

It's a great game, but not $200 dollars great. I mean, look at it.

So for the most part, I prefer to emulate old games. Emulation is, by definition, illegal. It's downloading copyrighted games for free. But when you consider that most of these games are not for sale anymore, it becomes obvious that you aren't stealing anything; it wasn't being sold. Some have been remade on virtual consoles, but not nearly all the classics. And its the classics that demand outrageous prices on Ebay. When I emulate, the only people I am stealing money from are the people selling the games on Ebay. I don't feel sorry for those people.

The reason I had to buy Jet Grind Radio was because the Dreamcast emulator I got failed to work correctly. I looked at the price of a Dreamcast on Ebay, but it was more than I was willing to spend at the time. Fortunately, I have a way of borrowing one for free.

Batman

I don't like explaining myself, but half the reason I haven't been posting is that I got a lot of new games over Christmas, which don't go in this blog. The other reason is laziness.

Batman is one of the better heroes in comics because he lacks any powers. He relies on his brain and his (admittedly huge) resource pool. Since the release of the Dark Knight, he has seen a resurgence of exposure and quality. The Batman Arkham games are of course fantastic (have them), but that's not to say earlier games didn't have any batman. Batman on the NES is an excellent hero game and very high quality game on its own merit (but the addition of Batman makes it better).

Already Looking Good

A shout out to the fellows at Screwattack.com for bringing this game to my attention. It's a good quality action platformer featuring a totally recognizable Batman. In fact, the graphics overall were quite excellent for the NES; sprites were well defined and the level changes feature cut-scenes. (Spoiler Alert!)

Those are big spoilers

The game was released around the same time as the first batman movie (By Tim Bourton) so it was meant to be a tie in. Fortunately, the game makers avoided the rookie mistake of sticking to closely to the movie. They did there own thing while making it a decidedly batman game with a few nods to the movie thrown in (The Joker wields a comically over-sized pistol). The game plays and controls well and batman has some nice moves. He can wall jump, which is necessary for some really ingenious platforming, and can attack with four different weapons: the Batarang, a missile launching pistol (?), some kind of shuriken launcher which isn't that useful, and BATMAN. That's right, when you run out of ammo (which happens, your weapons draw from one ammo pool), you BATMAN your enemies to death. It's really just punching, but it's Batman punching. It's actually a useful move since attacks stun the enemies and you can attack while jumping to an occupied platform.

Punching and wall jumping

Batarang, second best weapon.

As I was saying (before being distracted by Batman) the game controls well. If you take damage, it is usually your own fault. Some of the enemies do come at you unexpectedly, but you can remember where those ones are. The game can be difficult, but most of that difficulty is reserved for the boss fights. The normal enemies don't present much of a challenge. Notable exceptions: these mutants who bounce around like toads and never leave you alone, and these robot spawners attached to the ceiling where you can't hit them. Other than that, the game is pretty fair; no insta-death pits and no floating Medusa heads. You get infinite continues, which is always good, and the check point system is pretty forgiving. Batman is a rock solid NES title that let you feel like Batman way before the next gen games did.