You may wonder, Why would we be showing you the most classic level for a video game you’ve ever played? Well, to the untrained youngling eye, you probably haven’t noticed what I’m about to tell you. Look above at the picture. Notice anything similar? It’s not the coin boxes… It’s not the number 1’s… Get it yet?
Well after 23 years later…The developers used the same images for their clouds as their bushes.
Not too long ago, I brought you my “Top Ten Video Games of 1987“. Now it’s time for me to unleash my “Top Ten Video Games of 1988″ on you. 1988 was an interesting year in games and in the world. We saw Dan Rather clash with George H.W. Bush on television concerning Bush’s known role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Who would have known that we’d still have a Bush in the White House twenty years later? Hustler won their case against Jerry Falwell in the Supreme Court. Although it was a satirical story made up by Hustler, one still has to wonder if Falwell had sex with his mother in an outhouse. The world may never know!
Oliver North along with John Poindexter were indicted on conspiracy charges against the United States (North went on to found organizations such as the Freedom Alliance, where they used the skills of Jack Thomspson, the lawyer all gamers love, to go after Ice T and the song “Cop Killer”). Kirk Gibson hit perhaps the most memorable home run in World Series history. 1988 was certainly a very interesting year, but let’s talk about the games…
Here are my picks for top ten video games of 1988:
You are probably wondering why I didn’t find room for Zelda II on the list. Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of the game. I felt it was stretched out too long, the game wasn’t put together well and was nowhere close to the great game we saw with the original Zelda. Despite my feelings for Zelda II, the NES certainly dominated my year in gaming. I was still more of a Sega guy at the time, but they really had nothing to compare to NES games of that year.
Dragon Quest III was certainly the greatest video game on 1988. According to Wikipedia, the game is the single reason why the Japanese government outlawed releases of Dragon Quest games on school days. Of the ten games I listed, Dragon Quest III is perhaps the most timeless. It’s as fun today as it was 20 years ago.
Whale image via Shirt.Woot
It completely blows my mind that people of the world continue using the technical blunder known as Internet Explorer when the best web browsers are available for free and are one easy click away from downloading. We’re always trying new things on Kezins.com and the biggest problem is getting those new things to work in IE. Like most other arenas, Microsoft doesn’t play fair. They continually change IE and do NOT follow current web standards. In addition to Explorer not looking “right” when viewing a lot of sites, it’s also full of security issues. It boggles my mind why anyone uses it. There’s not one single good reason to use IE.
There’s nothing more frustrating than setting up something new on the site to find out that it works in every known browser but IE. At that point, we have to waste hours and hours of time trying to figure out how to get it to work or to simply drop the new feature because of this. Microsoft recently promised that IE 8 would automatically follow web standards and for a while, we started to believe them again. It turns out their new project does NOT follow standards intentionally. In actuality, a user will be required to manually change the browser settings for this to work. Why does Microsoft play like this? I don’t think anyone has a good answer, but it’s time people stopped dealing with them. If you are one of those still using Microsoft’s browser, check out the following downloads which are all BETTER options:
Opera: Opera has a few issues, but it’s really fast and still superior to IE.
Safari: I’m actually using Safari as we speak.
Firefox: Probably the best for security and customization.
The day people stop using IE will be the day my life becomes a lot easier. We certainly waste a ton of time making sure things work with Internet Explorer, instead of moving on to more important projects.
We were so jealous when we found out that record-breaking Gold-medal U.S. swimmer, Michael Phelps, got an early copy of Call of Duty: World at War a few months early, that any gamer watching likely spit out most of whatever they were eating at an unsuspecting television in front of them.
MTV got to the bottom of the story recently to let us know that, in fact, Mr. Phelps received nothing but an EMPTY box. The game, apparently, hasn’t even gone gold yet! Now, the swimmer only has his share of gold medals AND records to gloat about in our faces. No wonder he seemed unfazed at the end of the following video, he knew he was being lied to all along!
All hating aside, though, Activision did promise to send him a copy of the game, free of charge, when it’s actually released.
Via MTV Multiplayer Blog (found through Kotaku)
Making a repeat appearance this week to, what we’d think, repel potential buyers from its stench further is Vampire Rain: Altered Species which sucked it up on Xbox 360 and is looking to do the same on PS3. It never bodes well when a game’s demo is only released in Japan (like Vampire Rain did) and Americans never get a taste of it…tsk, tsk.
Other than that, we get some quality games this week with Mercenaries 2 and the long-awaited Spore. We’ve heard that the former’s online co-op might be a bit limiting with friends needing to be in close proximity to work, but we’re still looking forward to blowing shit up with a buddy in beautiful high-def.
(The following scores were “aggregated-tive-ized” as of September 1, 2008 via Metacritic)
The Good…
The Bad…
The Unrated…
Xbox 360
PS3
Wii
PC
DS
We always read about strange Second Life stories, but this has to be the most interesting I have come across in a long time. For those of you who don’t know about Second Life, it’s an Internet-based virtual world that was launched back in 2003. Users or “residents” interact with each other with motional avatars, creating an advanced social networking environment. In this particular case, a resident in the virtual world has now become a criminal in the real world.
Kimberly Jernigan, 33, has been arrested for attempting to abduct her virtual ex-boyfriend in real life. She originally met the victim while playing Second Life. According to New Castle County, Del. police, Jernigan hid inside the ex-boyfriend’s home in Claymont, Del. as part of an abduction scheme. Keep in mind, she’s married and her husband also maintains online “relationships” with various Second Life women. She was caught hiding in the home armed with a taser. No mention was made as to how she was caught. The police report that she planned to abduct him and start a new life together.
There hasn’t been a lot going on in the comic world lately, but ‘Fresh Ink Online’ recently reviewed Batman RIP, Urban Myths, Anna Mercury, and Uncanny X-Men. If you are interested in the topics here, G4 has some interesting forum discussions going on.
We talked about GameDaily HUD #1 last week and now they have released #2. For the second time in a row, they selected my old blogging partner in crime (Daniel Perez) from FileFront as one of the poll members. Head over to GameDaily and find out what the fuss is all about this week in the gaming world from the writers in the industry. Here’s a quick description of this week’s HUD:
Olympic games versus video games? Biggest convention news? Music game royalties? Ten writers reveal their answers to all that and more in this week’s HUD.
The kind people at G4 sent us the latest episode of the ‘MMO Report’ in an email. They talk a little about Star Trek Online, which is probably the one thing I want to know the most about in the MMO world right now. Here’s what they had to say:
Once again, The MMO Report comes correct to school your ass with knowledge. And yes, we have been listening to a lot of Run DMC in the office recently. This week, Casey gives you all the information we have on Star Trek Online, brings you a new segment that will tell you where to look for those over-priced figures you spend your hard earned dollars on, and about an MMO boss that takes 24 hours to take down. That is what I call dedication.
Kotaku recently posted a disturbing photograph of a Space Invaders game where the aliens are attack the twin towers. All I can say is that this isn’t amusing, entertaining or funny in any way. Apparently the game was on display in hall #4 of the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. It was projected on a massive screen near the Space Invaders 30th anniversary display. I’m not sure who was responsible for this, but they should really be ashamed of themselves. Over 2,700 innocent people were killed on 9/11 in those towers and I’d assume people could find ways to remember them in a positive way, not poke fun at what happened. While I always respect people’s rights to artistic expression, I also respect the right to tell them that their work is out of line.
Via Kotaku
Recent Comments