Love them or hate them it is hard to deny the Final Fantasy series impact on the gaming world. Starting with Final Fantasy VII the series earned the reputation as the leaders in the visual aspect of gaming. Final Fantasy VII was among the first games to implement full motion video in among actual game play and improved their methods with each effort there after.
Mixed with a variety of game play styles and strategies, Final Fantasy is one of those rare series that has been around ever since the original NES. While it has reached it's peaks and valleys over the years there is enough old content in that series that it is worthy of it's own blog. So have no fear the Final Fantasy Nerds have arrived. Visit our site at thefinalfantasynerds.blogspot.com to view our take on all of the old games, characters, stories, strategies, and more.
Recently I was browsing the Playstation Shop just seeing what was out there. I was stunned at the fact that games literally had cheat codes for sale. For me this is insane, cheat codes were such an amazing part of the early days of gaming its hard for me to believe that it been bastardized to the current form of getting the consumer to pay a few extra bucks. I don't mind paying for added content and things like that, but cheat codes?
As Boromir so eloquently put at the beginning of this article the "Konami Code" (or the "Contra Code" as I commonly hear it referred to as) is a wonderful example of that video game lore. The Konami Code is the input UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START and to say it is popular would be an understatement. Here is a Wikipedia link to the games that utilized the code. You will see that most major Konami titles utilize the code, and many other pay tribute to it. But some games were entirely different experiences without the cheat code.
Thank you to dorkly.com for posting these reminders just in case you ever happen to forget the code.
Contra for the NES is one of those games. Contra is a unique game for that it was a side scrolling platforming shooting game for some levels, and a 3-D vertical shooter in others. Overall the controls are very good, responsive and simple. Konami always did a nice job with character models, so visually the game was also quite good.
They don't look like pansies on the title screen, what the hell happened?
The trouble with Contra is that your character is actually quite a pansy. Instead of a life meter that you would expect to find in a game like this, your guy will literally die if anything hits him. If he gets hit by a bullet he dies, if he touches a bad guy he dies, if he touches the bottom of the screen in the vertical platforming levels he dies. And you begin the 10 level game with three lives to spare.
I can understand the falling rocks killing you, but what the hell on the bottom of the screen kills you?
Anyone who has ever played Contra will tell you that three lives can be spent in about 30 seconds in certain areas of this game if you have lost your gun powerups. That is where the Konami code becomes your best friend. Instead of three lives you begin with 30 lives, and regain those lives at your continue. Even with 30 lives Contra gives gamers quite a challenge. It is always fun to me to see how far I can make it without using a continue. My last attempt was thwarted by the level four boss. 30 lives is a much better way to go through Contra. The difficulty level is still extremely high
This is the last known photo of my poor Contra soldier before meeting his maker.
Another neat aspect of the game is the simultaneous two player option. Instead of swapping turns, you can have two soldiers running through the level at the same time. This makes many areas of the game a bit easier, particularly the boss battles. Of course some of the vertical scrolling areas get tricky to maneuver. But since 30 lives code works the same for the two player mode as well you can get away with a some mistakes here and there.
You can shoot either standing or from a prone position. You can also shoot at angles which is nice as well.
This is the 3-D vertical shooter mode. All of the controls are the same but it provides its own unique challenges.
Overall Contra really is a great game, and one of the iconic games that define the NES and its success. If you have never played the game, it is certainly worth checking out. And if you don't take my work on it, I dug up an amazing Contra song by Brentalfloss, and a Japanese commercial from YouTube to see if that can persuade you to play it.
Although the title of Retro Gaming Geek comes along with the expectations of being buried in a non stop avalanche of platforming games and shooters. The fact is that I do enjoy those games, and many other nerdy type games like strategy games, and I have not even begun to profess my love for RPG's. However I am a paradox of a gamer, in that I am also a considerable fan of RPG's but I am also a big sports fan. And while I love going on an epic adventures with my gaming, there is very little denying that some of the NES sports titles were quite innovative and a fun diversion when my adventures got derailed. The ability to customize characters and statistics has become a universal idea that crosses many different types of game genres.
Many hardcore gamers wont give their time to many sports titles, and for good reason. Much like the early arcade style games, sports games really only offer repetitive game play. While titles like Madden and the MLB the Show series offer state of the art graphics and a focus on accurately representing their subject matter, they don't truly really offer a great variety of play options. Quick play mode, season mode, franchise mode, General Manager mode, tournament mode, no matter how they dress it up at the end of the day it really is just game after game. If you don't care for sports there really is no appeal. But if you enjoy sports you know there is nothing repetitive about a good season mode somewhere.
There was no worries about steroids in the late 80's so the cover art could still feature a roided out batter.
With spring training just around the corner, it makes me think of one of my personal favorite early sports games: Baseball Stars. Released in 1989 by SNK Baseball Stars is one of many titles for the NES that tackled the national pastime. While the pitcher/batter interaction isn't the best looking of the batch it makes up for it in fun factor. Baseball games up to that point really weren't very good. Many of those early Atari baseball games didn't really follow the game really well, and others made fielding nearly impossible. Baseball Stars was different, you could field and run the bases with limited mistakes caused by messing up on the controller (Which sadly became a common issue with many baseball titles going forward). The pitcher/batter interface wasn't as nice looking as some of the other baseball titles, but didn't have steep learning curve of many of those other titles.
There were other pitcher/batter interfaces that looked much better than this, but this one worked pretty well.
In my opinion many baseball games have even to this day have been very poorly done, my favorite games are the more recent MLB the Show games, which really makes most other titles look bad. So just making a fun and playable baseball game was quite a triumph, but what fans of Baseball Stars really remember is the customization. The NES was the first system that really had any chance at this, due to the fact that you could save the progress in your games. Since Baseball Stars lacked any kind of MLB licensing they gave you a few teams, and you had to create teams to fill the rest of the roster. The players from these created teams were able to be named, traded, upgraded, or straight up released and replaced.
If Jim sucks and you can get a better player, you can send him off into the sunset, quite literally.
At that time that kind of customization was insane. It wasn't even that common for players to have unique attributes, let alone a whole General Manager mode. First you create your own custom league with 2-6 teams and setup the number of times each team plays each other. As long as you are controlling your own custom team you will earn money after each victory that can be used towards hiring new players or upgrading the players you have. Add the fact that there were statistics and a league leader section for the season mode, Baseball Stars was really one of the first great sports game experiences. There was a direct sequel out for the NES, and then Little Leauge Baseball: Championship Series and Legends of the Diamond which featured a roster of legendary baseball players which featured very similar gameplay. After the NES Baseball Stars moved to the Neo-Geo with two more Baseball Stars games with big improvements to the graphics.
Undoubtedly these traits have become the standard of any sports title now to keep the replay value of the game as high as possible. So I always credited Baseball Stars for raising the bar early for other sports titles. So if you are looking for a fun and addicting take on the national pastime try to hunt down Baseball Stars.
This April I will probably venture a little deeper into the very deep pool of early baseball title but for now I will leave you with some Baseball Stars gameplay from YouTube.
Yes, This is the actual view of the PS4 from the event thrown in New York City announcing the release
It's official, but that's about all we really learned in Sony's official announcement of the Playstation 4. Many gamers have had today's date marked on the calendar as the date they would get to feast their eyes upon the future. But as the image above indicates, this is what I feasted my eyes upon.
As the Retro Gaming Geek I love to look back at many of the games from the past and share my memories, but at the same time I have an interest in where I like seeing what those old games have spawned. And frankly I am scared at what I saw tonight. With projections of the recent Wii U and PS Vita systems taking a nose dive and market stability at its lowest point in years. Add to that the fact that technology improvements aren't coming quite as rapidly, many people including myself are wondering if there is even a need for a new round of systems to appear in the same time frame as systems were released in the past.
Tonight was a huge opportunity for Sony to create some anticipation for their next generation but I fear the ball was majorly dropped. For two hours developers were paraded out one after another to basically show tech demos and tell us all to wait for E3. As far as tech demos go I didn't see a lot that looked much different than what my Playstation 3 is all ready capable of doing. And while it is always neat to see new game concepts in motion, this was Sony's party after all so the big reveal had to be coming. After seeing two hours of talk came... the end.
No price point, no specs, and no look at the system. "Playstation wants to win the war against reality" said an early teaser, and nothing I saw there made me even believe that the Playstation 4 is an actual real thing. In fact the whole charade looked more like Sony's effort to throw developers that may be behind schedule under the bus in front of a live audience, all the while not proving anything themselves. Sony only really announced Holiday 2013 is the release date and that's about all they offered about the system itself.
Really the only real upgrade that I feel that Sony sounded proud about was the live streaming technology, so if you don't want to use your time to play games yourself you can watch other people play games. To me that doesn't sound like something that screams improvement, it screams desperation to get a new system out. I'm sorry Sony, I really wanted a reason to be excited about this thing, and so did a lot of other people you are counting on buying this system. I guess I will have to wait until E3, until then I guess for me it's time to go back in time.
If I told you there was a video game based on an urban legend perpetuated by the mass murder of cute little arctic rodents by the Disney company in the 1950's would you think I was crazy. However it is true. The game is called Lemmings, and before getting into the game I should explain the backstory.
This is a real live non-suicidal lemming.
A lemming is a small rodent that lives in Arctic regions of the world. A popular misconception arose about lemmings, that during migration they would commit mass suicide by jumping off the edge of a cliff into the sea. In 1958 Disney released "White Wilderness" a nature documentary in which they showed lemmings plunging off of cliff sides to their eventual death. Sadly this was only an attempt to romanticize these legends and led to many people believing that the lemming stories were true. The footage of the lemming suicide was staged and the poor little creatures were either pushed or launched into achieve the footage that was in the documentary. Then the poor little bastards tried to swim away from the Disney masochists, not realizing that they weren't just in the lake. I have included that footage below and you can see for yourself.
However the idea of little creatures walking blindly into impending doom did tum out to inspire a pretty good video game. The original 1991 version was released for the Amiga due to the fact it had a mouse which really is the logical way to play the game. However the game was so much fun, there has been a version released for damn near every game system I've ever owned. There is a version for the following systems: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Mac, NES, SNES, Turbo Grafx CD, Sega Master System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Sega Game Gear, Game Boy, PSP, PS1, PS2, 3DO, CD-i, and a bunch more for some obscure old systems.
Several of our brave lemming friends must explode to allow the herd to make it to safety in this level.
Lemmings worked on a simple platformer basis. The lemmings would pop out of a trap door into some type of peril. Left to their own devices the lemmings will just walk until they hit something and turn around and walk the other way, even if that path will lead to their doom. There was a goal at the end of the level and your job was to teach several lemmings a particular skill to help pave the way for the others to reach the goal safely.
The entire name of the game is strategy and using the jobs that are given correctly. Climbers obviously climb things. Floaters deploy an umbrella to avoid death from falling from a distance. Bombers blow up and destroy everything within a certain radius. Blockers stay put and keep other lemmings from passing. Builders build 12 stairs. And Bashers, Miners, and Diggers all just dig in different directions.
The original version came with its own side effect warning label.
The developers were very keen on keeping the learning curve manageable. The first few levels are designed to familiarize yourself with the games controls and jobs. As the game goes on the challenges get more and more severe. Each level has its own specific goals, many of the levels will only require the saving of a percentage of the lovable little scamps. Unfortunately these levels require you to use either blockers or bombers in your strategy to martyr themselves for the greater good. And if you see that you need to save 100% of the lemmings you know that you have failed immediately after one dies.
The nuke button made Lemmings the best game to screw up ever.
And what did the developers do in those tricky situations where we were completely stuck with no hope of success? Well they gave us the nuke button of course (Thank god Disney hasn't featured lemmings in any more recent nature films). Instead of allowing the level to just end with some downer jingle and sad times that you screwed up, you got to blow all of your little friends to smithereens, just like this guy who sings his rather joyous lemmings song the whole time (They start exploding at about 1:20 if you want to spare yourself from hearing the song the whole time)...
Thankfully the real soundtrack for Lemmings doesn't quite pack the same punch. It's hard to believe that Lemmings has now been around for over two decades. And obviously it still has demand, I believe it is currently on sale for digital download on the PSN and will be coming up on its 25th anniversary within the next few years so I expect to see the title make a return in the future. In my opinion it is still one of the all time greats as far as strategy games goes. So unless the Sega Dreamcast is your last working game system, find a copy of Lemmings and have some fun.
Also thankfully YouTubers like to upload themselves playing games without singing along. Here is some Lemmings gameplay to enjoy. The second one is particularly amazing check them out.
I think for my first Retro Review it would only be appropriate to review the first video game I can remember playing. For me it was the game Combat on the Atari 2600. As a youngster I became fascinated with my teenage uncle's Atari. He was playing Yars Revenge and I asked if I could have a turn. He promptly told me no. However my Grandmother had my back and demanded that I was given a turn. Unwilling to give up his controller he made a concession... it was called Combat.
Combat was originally released in 1977 with the launch of the Atari 2600 system. It was a simple game pitting one player versus another in either a tank battle or an aerial dogfight with various numbers and types of fighter planes. Combat was a home console version of an old series of black and white arcade game named Tank. As a launch title for the Atari 2600 it was a staple of many game collections for the system.
Combat did have one big flaw for some gamer due to the fact it was only a multiplayer game. None of the games 27 different variations have a one player version that can be played. If you didn't have a friend you spent your time shooting at a stationary tank or shooting down harmless airplanes flying in a straight line. I always thought there had to have been a kids that got the Atari 2600 with Combat included and didn't get any other game with it and could rarely play it properly.
As a one player game you could maneuver your tank through a horrible maze of blocks.
Then shoot the hell out of a stationary tank.
And this is why my uncle was hellbent on playing it. Nothing is more satisfying than destroying your little nephew off of your game system, and I obviously wasn't playing it without him. He was right, after a few merciless rounds of having countless tanks and planes destroyed I would have enough and he could resume his one player quests through games like Space Invaders and Pitfall. But nearly everyone who had an Atari also had Combat, and over the years I logged my time on that game.
The game play on Combat is fairly straight forward. For the tank modes of the game you move your Tank forwards and backwards by hitting up and down on the joystick and rotating the tank pressing left and right. The button fired a deadly square that reacted differently depending on the game mode. For every deadly square you bounced off your opponent got you a point. If you were hit by a deadly square you spin uncontrollably and are restarted in a random direction. The different modes are either a standard shooting mode or a tank pong mode where the tanks bullets will ricochet off of the barriers.
The plane modes are basically the same concept only instead of pressing up the plane moves forward on its own, you only worry about steering and shooting. The different modes are a bit more interesting for the planes. There are actually three types of planes: Biplanes, Jets, and Bombers. There are a number of different modes using the different types of planes.
The planes made for a much cooler game experience.
The clouds in the middle provided cover for your plane.
To give a fair review of the game I have to think back to the time. As one of the original Atari 2600 titles it did have a lot to offer. And compared to some of the other titles that came out for that system, it was a masterpiece. People always remember it for having the slow clunky tanks, but the plane battles were quite good. And as far as being a piece of trivia, it was one of the first well known multiplayer shooters.
My personal favorite mode was the mode with one on one jets. Since the planes moved automatically it was far easier to just have to steer. And the battles were much better, with a tank many modes would have obstacles that you would have to maneuver. Two bad players (or drunks) could barely get their tanks close enough to fire. With the planes if you flew off the edge of the screen you would pop up on the other side so no one was ever truly safe. That just made for better battles and more exciting gameplay.
But also to give a fair review there were some downsides. As I said before there were 27 different modes in the game. If you have ever played one you will know that you don't get a convenient menu screen like modern games do. You had to use the pain in the ass game select button to scroll through the different game modes. All of the first modes were the tanks so you had to already hit the button quite a few times to get to the planes. If you missed the mode you wanted you could end up having to hit that button over 50 times until you are playing in the mode you want.
Don't ever get trapped in a corner in tank mode.
Especially as a 4 year old playing your first ever video game.
As my first game there were tons of better options for me. Combat is certainly best suited for a group of 4 or more people swapping controllers. With the lack of single player mode and a painfully slow tanks it can hardly be considered a masterpiece. However it really was an innovator as far as being a multi-player shooter, and one of the first games to feature aerial battles. So let me leave you with some YouTube footage of this little piece of view of this little piece of video game history.
As I digest many of the rumors, speculations and general excitement that comes along with the news that the Playstation 4 and the Xbox 720 may not be very far off into the future I realized something. I realized that as a 30 something that never grew out of the "video game phase," that myself and my generation really did grow up alongside the video game.
When the Atari 2600 finally gained popularity in the United States in the late 1970's, many young people my age were cutting their teeth on the roots of what has become an entire culture. While many of the games in the early Atari catalog weren't exactly masterpieces, it was a strong start to something great. The simple graphics and sounds made these early titles a springboard for a young person's imagination.
At that time I was still very young, my video game experience was getting my ass kicked at games like Combat by my teenage uncle. I also remember getting bored quickly at doing the same thing over and over again, or just not understanding what the hell was going on. (Thank you E.T.) It also didn't help at all that the controls weren't exactly the most responsive either.
There I am in the blue tank, still figuring out the controls.
Much like growing up in the early 1980's the video game industry hit a very awkward period as well. Just as a youngster I needed to learn from my mistakes and try new things, the video game industry found themselves in a strange learning phase. Atari attempted to replicate their own success by releasing the Atari 5200 and 7800. Other systems such as the Colecovision and Intellicast both attempted to become players as well in an increasingly oversaturated market. While each new system boasted improvements to the graphics and sound they each found themselves with problems. Almost all of the systems had clunky, gimmicky controllers that made the games difficult to play. And although the games looked and sounded better than ever, they still lacked depth and replay value.
In 1982 Colecovision took a commanding lead in video game graphics.
However it was as big as your coffee table, and you had to play it with that weird telephone thingy.
As I got older it appeared that video games would simply be an interesting footnote of my early childhood.. However one company attempted to slap that thought out of my young mind. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released with a furious go for broke advertising campaign. This time around things were different. The gaming experience was something to behold for the time. The graphics were improved, the sounds were much better, the overall experience was vastly improved. However the single most important feature of the NES was its controller.
This was so much easier on the thumbs than anything before it.
In my opinion the NES controller's directional pad was the single most important innovation in home console video gaming. Instead of going with a traditional joystick, the "D-pad" made for crisper and more responsive control of the games. Just as I had grown bigger the NES control fit wonderfully into my growing hands. I don't think we would be talking about the future of video games in this country without the d-pad. Even to this day each major gaming system has made use of some form of the d-pad on their controllers.
Rob the Robot was the star of the early Nintendo advertisements, they went on to make 2 games for Rob.
Over the next few years the NES grew into the premiere home console video game system. It is rare to find a person over the age of 25 that hasn't had some previous experience with one. While the old Atari system was great inspiration, the Nintendo was revolutionary. Aside from the obvious improvements the games were also much better. While the NES did support the old arcade style games, developers were also given the option to create large scale epic adventure type games that necessitated numerous sittings to complete. Once again as I got older and my attention span grew and the games I was playing grew with me.
Since the release of the NES the video game industry grew. The NES marked the era of the modern video game. Over the next several years the market shifted from the focus on arcade games, on to the home consoles. And finally video game makers created the type of fan base and buzz that led to excitement for the releases of new game systems.
Well they can't all be zingers I guess.
Over the course of my life I have now seen this repeat itself over and over again every few years like clockwork. The Super Nintendo was the first system that I can remember having a strong anticipation for. Following that was the Nintendo 64, and the excitement of the news that the Sony Playstation was attempting the do CD Rom games that would blow the new Nintendo's games away. Next came the Playstation 2 and Xbox systems with boasted a DVD rom and some of the finest games that the world had ever seen. And most recently the excitement for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 units heading into the realm of high definition graphics. And the curiosity that accompanied the Nintendo Wii using cutting edge motion controllers to attempt to redefine the industry yet again.
And we thank you Wii for that innovation.
And I grew up with all of it, and loved every minute of it. But as I sit and think about what is coming in the near future it caused me to sit and reflect on the past. Made me realize that me and hoards of other 30 somethings out there really are a part of Generation Gamer. I will be the first to admit I have logged many hours on newer titles such as Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Elder Scrolls games and grew up with staple series like Final Fantasy, Madden and Super Mario Brothers. As great as video games have become I realize that they just were not possible without those classic games that I played as a child. With that realization The Retro Gamer Geek was born.
So if you are a fellow member of Generation Gamer feel free to visit this blog for a various array of topics. Past, Present and Future are all fair game here. Stay tuned for more blog posts.
