Overview forgames

Digital nonsense

Jazzpunk

Jazzpunk is a game that’s hard to explain with words.  Video does a much better job with this task.  If my write-up doesn’t seem to make sense, then I recommend searching online for a trailer that does a parody to the ‘60s television show Thunderbirds.  Well, I think that trailer will make less sense, but you know what I mean.

Silly rabbit

Today was the day they brought Vib-Ribbon to the US and I just finished playing it.  Sad to say, but for a while I was a bit disappointed.  This was going to be a case where the game didn't live up to the hype.  Sure, I thought the included J-Pop music were neat and all, but the number of songs that came with the game were only a measly few. However, make a note that these tracks should only be seen as a sort of warm-up as the the game gives you a mode where you can use your own music with the game.  This is where the game got incredibly fun and its replay value seen as being endless!

I popped in my copy of Ill Communication and boy howdy did it get crazy!  "Sabotage" was the easiest while "Heart Attack Man" spiced things up a few notches. "Get It Together" was when things got sideways real fast (I'm still trying to beat it).  It was only after I played my own music was when I finally understood why people love this game so much.  It's so cool!

For those who are wondering: I think they did a good job of emulating the game as I don't believe there is any input lag as compared to the port of PaRappa the Rapper.  They also used the EU port, so there are a number of European region languages to pick from.  This is a cute game that is fully of character and is highly recommended by yours truly.

Update: "E-Pro" would be a great song to play in Vib-Ribbon, too.  The music video is kind of like the game both visually and gameplay wise, especially towards the end when Beck's jumping on the music notes.

Page padding

Check it out!  For your convenience, I’ve created a link to the homepage for my games journal writings.  So instead of searching the blog timeline for each post, you can instead click this handy link on the right-hand side of the homepage to see a listing of all the entries for this feature.  It’s a bit bare now, but I’m planning to add more to it in the coming days.  Hopefully in a few months from now this feature will be full of games that it becomes as a sort of entertaining and useful resource of info regarding the games listed there.

Prancing horses

OutRun 2

I wanna say the majority of arcades I visited in the ‘80s and the early ‘90s always had an OutRun arcade cabinet.  With this cabinet, three things always come to mind.  1) The cool ability to select the music you wanted to listen to as you raced.  2) The satisfying way the shifter “clunked” from the low gear to the high gear.  3) The way how the steering wheel you were gripping violently shook when you crashed your incredibly expensive car.  Twenty some-odd years later, there would be a sequel to this game called OutRun 2.  Now while I never played it at the arcades, I got to play it on the Xbox; where this port was successful in accomplishing 2 out of those 3 items above by replicating them, and improving on the 3rd by swapping it with another type of game mechanic.  Here’s a writeup about this fantastic sequel.

The higher energy video game system

Christian Nutt over at Gamasutra wrote an awesome feature regarding the TurboGrafx-16.  It mainly covers the struggles NEC and Hudson had when pushing the console out to the US market.  It’s more like a documentary piece because Christian brought in and interviewed many people who worked on the TurboGrafx-16 project, so you get perspectives from all sides regarding the drama that surrounded the little console that could.

Wicked realm

Evil Zone

A fighting game full of crazy made up words like Eretzvaju, I-Praseru, and Ihadurca.  More bizarre is the voice actor of Roy Campbell, placing his identifiable voice all over this game as both a character and narrator.  Adding to this is the voice actor of Duke Nukem, Jon St. John.  Even with all of this voice acting craziness, it’s a game still worthy of your attention.