Slashdot Mirror
Download Services Have Missiles, Dolphins
This week both Nintendo and Microsoft's downloadable game services have some great titles to offer. The Wii will soon be playing host to Super Mario Bros. 2, Ecco: Tides of Time, and Dragon Spirit . Xbox Live Arcade, meanwhile, has up an update of Missile Command . This latest follows on the heels of Pac-Man: CE , a worthy and well-received updating of the arcade classic. Ars' comment about Ecco is dead on: "I used to love this game, just swimming around and doing those flips out of the water as Ecco was pretty calming. Then you tried to actually play the game and found out just how excruciatingly difficult it could be. While the Dreamcast update lost some of the magic, the original Ecco is still a neat twist on 2D games. Who knew that taking a platformer and setting it underwater would be so much fun?"
I thought that this would be a story about thePirateBay.org taking over Seaworld and defending themselves with missile armed dolphins. The real story is an anti-climax :(
Rational thought is the only true freedom
I did, and the 2600 version of Missile Command absolutely sucked compared to the arcade machine in all its multi-button trackball glory. If anything, Missile Command would be far better suited to an update on the Wii where at least the Wiimote would be more interesting than moving crosshairs around with a joystick.
Excruciatingly difficult says it all, really. Seriously, I almost threw the fucking console at the wall because of that thing. "Whoops, you brushed against some weeds, so you're going to be stuck here until you press all the right buttons in the right order for the right amount of time, or until you drown. Either way, you're stuck." I think that's the first game where I've actually been more satisfied skipping levels.
Grr. I'm all angry now, reminded of that.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Yeah, they changed base-10 arithmetic 18 years ago (1998). Where were you?
why? forty-two.
To this day Super Mario Bros 2 is my favorite of the entire series. I don't know what it is. The game just seemed even more surreal than any of the others. The enemies seems more inventive too. The others are all great, but there's something I just like about that particular version.
I'm a bit underwhelmed by Pac Man CE, particularly graphics wise. So they put the effort into making the states rendered in nice high resolution and they couldn't be bothered to have done the same with Pac Man and the ghosts? I don't see the nostalgia in keeping them pixelated like that. And there have been numerous inventive Pac Man clones through the years, especially on the PC.
The interesting thing about many of these old games is how awkward their control schemes feel. Most anyway, Super Mario Bros and a handful of others still feel very fluid and natural to this day. But most take some getting used to. Some games I had fond memories of I found myself disappointed by because of the controls to the point where I couldn't be bothered to play them very long. One particularly aggravating example is Bionic Commando.
Interestingly, I've never had a problem graphics-wise. I maintain that 2D sprites age better than 3D graphics, especially those aiming for realism. However, given my experience with emulation, I have a hard time spending money buying Virtual Console games. To be honest, I prefer the approach seen on Xbox Live where developers take an old game and update the graphics and gameplay. It would be interesting to see this done with some of those old Nintendo games.