This writer was only a few months into life when the first Mega Man hit Japan in 1987. The first conscious memory of the “blue bomber” comes in the form of Mega Man X on the SNES where “Rockman” could slide on walls and charge his never-ending shots. Mega Man 9 is the retro-culmination of a series stripped down to the fundamentals that were perfected with Mega Man 2, according to fans of wrinkly-old games. What does a gamer without the nostalgia for the series think of the game? Continue reading »
Computer and Video Games has let us know that we’ll be seeing the official announcement of the next KOTOR game in a “matter of weeks.” We’ve reported on this before, but we’ll finally be able to (hopefully!) see a few more concrete details in the near future.
The first two games were incredibly fun to play and proved that with proper care a great RPG could be made out of the “Star Wars” universe. KOTOR II was developed by Obsidian and this new MMO — from what we’ve heard — will have the original team, Bioware, back at the helm.
This week we take you back to 1984, where Hulk Hogan defeated Iron Sheik to become WWF Champ, Michael Jackson is burned during filming for a Pepsi commercial and McDonald’s made its 50 billionth hamburger. Oh yeah, it also was the year the Summer Olympics took place in good ole Los Angeles, California. What a better way to commemorate this years Summer Olympics than to show you how it was done.
Summer Games is a sports video game developed by Epyx and released by U.S. Gold based on sports featured in the Summer Olympic Games. Released in 1984 for the Commodore 64, it was also eventually ported to the Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari XL/XE and Sega Master System platforms. Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari ST versions were also created for inclusion in compilations. In 2004 it would be “re-released” on the C64 Direct-to-TV.
The game was presented as a virtual multi-sport carnival called the “Epyx Games” (there was no official IOC floppy disk. licensing in place) with up to 8 players each choosing a country to represent, and then taking turns competing in various events to try for a medal. On most versions, world records could be saved to the floppy disks.
Remember these? Coleco’s Mini-Arcades were “The Arcade Games You Can Take Home With You!”
Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, Pac-Man, Galaxian and Donkey Kong were the first Coleco Mini’s that were produced in the 80’s. Not really portable but Coleco marketed them as the “Arcade Game You Can Take Home…” The commercial below shows just how big and clunky these devices were. And running on 4 C’s, you know this should have been on wheels. Nevertheless, growing up in the 80’s where Arcades WERE the main gaming system, Coleco made a good attempt of trying to capture them.
In tribute of this past weeks announcement of Mega Man 9, we’re going back to 1987 to bring you how it all started… Mega Man part uno. Known to some as Rockman, Megaman, developed by Capcom, was a side scrolling action NES game. Mega Man was the only NES Mega Man title to feature a score counter. I consider Mega Man to be one of the first strategic games due to the Robot Master attributes you gain after you defeat them. For ex. The easiest way to kill CutMan relies not in your Mega Buster, but in your Super Arm that you got from GutsMan in the last stage.
Characters
Mega Man — Tool assistant, originally known as Rock (or Mega in the remake), created and modified by Dr. Light to combat Wily.
Dr. Albert W. Wily — The antagonist of the game, his goal is world domination. He appears as the final boss in a hovering ship (at first a tank-like machine in the remake).
Dr. Thomas Light — Creator of Mega Man, aids Mega Man on his adventure to stop Dr. Wily.
Roll — Mega Man’s sister, she makes her debut in this game, though in the NES version her name is not mentioned. She is only seen at the ending of the credits in the NES version, but she can be downloaded in the PSP remake as a playable character.
Robot Masters — Cutman, Gutsman, Elecman, Fireman, Iceman, and Bombman.
Mega Man is made up of six stages, with a Robot Master at the end guarding a weapon. The stage select screen allows the player to choose from these six stages, and when they are all completed, the seventh and last stage appears in the middle of the menu, replacing the text “Stage Select, Press Start”. This last stage is in fact more like four regular stages linked together, some a bit shorter than average, but with bosses that are considered harder than usual.
Mega Man 9 is due out on the XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. We’ll keep you updated with all the news “Mega Man 9″ related.
It’s incredible that this Nintendo classic has hit the 21 year anniversary. Not to be confused with the latter side scrolling adventure game ‘Battle of Olympus’ Zelda II was released in 1988 in North America and 1987 in Japan. Many Zelda fans did not accept The Adventure of Link even being called ‘the black sheep” of the Zelda series. Sales were still high, as expected, possibly due to this Japanese commercial.
I think the little girl said, “Haha, we got the game first! You filthy American’s get it next year.”
In 1984 Arcade Galleria’s had their hands on an instant classic. Kung-Fu Master was a great action fighter game that included 5 floors of kicking and punching (and sweeping midgets).
The player takes the role of Keiji Thomas, a man in a Keikogi and slippers. Thomas’s girlfriend, Sylvia, has been kidnapped by “Mr. X”, and Thomas must fight through five side-scrolling floors full of enemies to rescue her.
The first floor of the temple contains Grippers (standard Kung Fu henchmen who charge Thomas and grab him, draining his life bar) and Knife Throwers (men who throw knives high or low). But subsequent levels introduce Tom Toms (small dwarves who can surprise Thomas by jumping on his head), poisonous moths, fire-breathing dragons (Thomas must punch or kick them before they breathe fire), snakes, and confetti balls. (These hang in mid-air for a few seconds and then explode into three pieces after a few seconds; Thomas must jump kick these before they explode. If Thomas is hit by any pieces of debris from an exploding confetti ball, he takes massive damage.)
Each of the five floors ends with a different boss who must be defeated before Thomas can climb the stairs to the next floor. The first two bosses are ordinary men armed with a stick and honed boomerangs, respectively. The third is a Giant, the fourth a Black Magician, and the fifth is Mr. X, a versatile Kung Fu master. Thomas must complete each floor within a fixed time. The timer starts at 2000. If it falls below 330, a warning sounds. If a boss defeats Thomas, the boss laughs. Although there are five bosses, the game only uses two different synthesized laughs.
Most of us recall the first game we really got into on the PC. My first was Wizardry, a simple (yet complex for the time) dungeon crawler published by Sir-Tech. Although there were some similar games at the time, this would probably be what I considered the first true “dungeon crawl”. You start the game in a podunk town and have to create a party of up to six characters from an assortment of races including humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and gnomes. This was also one of the first games where you could choose alignment which included good, neutral and evil. You could also choose from four classes for each of your characters including fighter, mage, thief and priest. Later in the game, you could also upgrade certain characters to elite classes.
Hoboken, New Jersey lies on the west bank of the Hudson River just a rock throw away from New York City. Hoboken is the archetypal American port town and has a deep and rich history. Although the city isn’t really known for superhero action, many great people in American history hailed from the city such as Frank Sinatra.
In 1994, a weird DOS based game titled ‘Superhero: League of Hoboken’ hit the scene and it’s one of the few games based on Hoboken that I know about.
If you happened to be on a flight with Japan Airlines in the early to mid 1990s, you probably had the opportunity to play the Sega Mega Jet, which was a portable version of the Mega Drive. Unfortunately, the Mega Jet lacked a screen, but could play several Mega Drive cartridges when plugged into a screen. In 1994, the system went commercial for US$123. The main problem with the system was that it still didn’t have a built-in screen and had to be played with an AC adapter. Another limitation to the system was the fact that you could only play certain games out of the entire Mega Drive collection.
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