I may not put much thought into Christmas lists today, but back when I was a kid they were practically an a?rt form. From the presentation to the content itself, I pulled out all the stops to draw attention to whatever it was I coveted at the time.

Thanks to the magic of Never Throwing Anything Away, we can now take a trip back to 1994 to see how well my? wants, needs, and frothing demands stack up today.

When I first found this relic, I was instantly transported to more carefree days. While it may indeed be "just another Christmas list," there's a certain element of time travel involved when you're staring down the barrel of crumpled yellow legal paper full of must-own games, consoles, and action figures. Ever the savvy child, my '94 list is ordered by priority, with the first page practically screaming Castlevania: Bloodlines at a visual volume my parents would neve??r be able to?? ignore.

Bloodlines is a great example of a game I'd still be asking for today if I didn't already own it. With that logo so boldly emblazoned on the page, there's no way my folks could mistake it for anything else, but I'm willing to admit a prominent Belmont, skeleton, or Dracula himself could have made my plan even more foolproof. The rest of the first page is a mixed bag. The visual aids for the other two solid picks â€?Splatterhouse 3 and Shinobi III â€?have long since lost the battle with time. Rounding out the Sega Genesis page are X-Men and Aladdin, the latter of which earned an asterisk fro??m, most likely, my mom. 

I could live without X-Men, but Aladdin was pretty great on Genesis. Splatterhouse 3 is my least played of the trilogy, ??but it was at least interesting and very grody. The rest of this page earns it a solid score overall.

PAGE ONE RATING: 8/10

Best Pick: Castlevania: Bloodlines
Worst Pick: X-Men

We bought a T-Rex

The Super Nintendo page is about as bare-bones as can be, with two very disparate outings front and center. Judging by my own memory, the asterisk, the "K-Mart" note, and the checkmark at the bottom, I can deduce that my parents went with Super Empire Strikes Back, which was not pictured. 

As for Ocean-published entry, it was 1994, one year after Jurassic Park hit cinemas, so you can't blame me for wanting to live that harrowing adventure for myself. As you'll see over the following pages, though, my greed knew no bounds. I didn't just want a single slice, I wanted the whole Jurassic Park video game pie for Christmas. 

Also, all the folks out there who've been complaining about 60 dollar games for the past decade can take that Mario All-Stars price point straight to the bank. 

PAGE TWO RATING: 6/10

Best Pick: Super Mario All-Stars
Worst Pick: Jurassic Park

That is one big pile of list

Here's a prime example of "one of these things is not like the other." On one end of the spectrum we have Jurassic Park and Mortal Kombat on Game Boy, both of which are not worth playing or owning for different reasons. On the other we have The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, one of the best Game Boy games of all time. The games might not all be created equal, but that on-pa?ge ranking speaks for itself.

Link, it would seem, found a way.

PAGE THREE RATING: 5/10

Best Pick: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Worst Pick: TIE - Jurassic Park / Mortal Kombat

Man creates batteries. Game Gear destroys batteries. 

If I were to tell you this is the last Jurassic Park related item on this list, would you believe me? I guess I didn't actually have a Game Gear just yet, but I sure wanted one. I also wanted Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, Strider Returns, Sonic Chaos, and, yes, Jurassic Park. What, exactly,? was I going to do with all this time spent on Isla Nublar? If we're taking asterisks as canon for this Christmas list, I was a real ??spoiled brat in 1994. 

PAGE FOUR RATING: 3/10

Best Pick: Game Gear? I probably put a bunch of Energizer employeesâ€?children through college with this. 
Worst Pick: Jurassic Park? At th??is point I don't remember how bad this one was. 

God help us, we're in the hands of engineers.

"Finally," you shriek, "video game accessories!" Buddy, I'm ??just as excited as you are looking back at all this primo plastic from a time long-forgotten. Consider this the first of tw??o bonus rounds, as we weigh the relative wisdom behind asking for some truly essential accoutrement. Looking back, SNES Advantage is absolutely not a controller that would have gotten much use in my household. The Game Boy Carry-All is certainly practical, as are the Game Gear Battery Pack, Game Boy Power Pak, and, no longer pictured, the six-button Genesis controller. 

The all-powerful asterisk tells the tale of a rotten little cheater, however. A game-breaking goober who absolutely, positively deserves to find rubbish like the X-Men: Project X Tiger LCD game in his stocking. 

PAGE FIVE RATING: 3/10

Best Pick: Game Gear Battery Pack
Worst Pick: Literally any Tiger LCD game

We spared no expense.

At this point, I'm just laying my obsession with Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic American film Jurassic Park â€?based on the hit novel by Michael Crichton â€?bare for all to witness. The "Toys and Boardgames" section is truly a depraved last effort to add to an embarrassment of indulgences. Just look at those Jurassic Park figures on order! Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tim Murphy, and Ellie Sattler?. TIM MURPHY? In my world, apparently you had to catch 'em all before that was even a thing. 

Beyond that we have a trio of X-Men figures, the Jurassic Park Compound Center, Jurassic Park Survival Chase slot car set, Lego Fire-Breathing Fortress, and The Omega Virus. I had to look up what The Omega Virus even is, and I think I own it. Apparently it's a board game. Wasn't there some Jurassic Park board game I could have swapped in its place to stay on theme? The box c??opy screams, "It talks! It taunts! It must be terminated!" If ever there was a time to sell?? me on a talking electronic board game, it was the early '90s. 

PAGE SIX RATING: 4/10

Best Pick: Ellie Sattler
Worst Pick: Tim Murphy

When the dust settles after blowing it off these ancient yuletide yearnings, it doesn't really matter what I think about them. I leave this overly ambitious list to the judgment of others, so that I, too, may be judged in turn. It might seem as if a key takeaway should be that I'm the biggest mark ever for the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection, but that couldn't be further from the ??truth. I? was a big dummy; those games stink!

The post Let’s see how my 1994 Christmas list holds up nearly 30 years later appeared first on Destructoid.

Home ports of arcade games can be a bit of a gamble. Often, they’re running on much less powerful hardware, and that can reflect in many different ways on the game. It might have less action, more slowdown, or it could just be a lot uglier. Other times, the home port of a notorious quarter-muncher might be rebalanced for the living room, as is the case with Super Smash T.V. or the NES Contra.

Old ports are also interesting from a design standpoint. Many were done by people who weren’t associated with the original production and d??idn’t have any access to the original code. They were, in a way, just sketching the closest facsimile they could to the original version. The faithfulness of the port was, therefore, all down to the analytical skills of the developer, as well as their access to the original source material and how many fucks they were willing to part with. Were they actually interested in the work, or were they just trying to get a project done before a deadline?

Pit-Fighter is an interesting example of this, as back when it was released in arcade in 1990, it wasn’t unpopular, but it also wasn’t 1991’s Street Fighter II. So, it was a bit of a crapshoot a?s to whether or not it was going to get a single decent port. There were a lot of them, and we’re going to take a look.

For simplicity, I’m going to look at the console and handheld ports. There were a number on the various home computer platforms at the time, but after struggling with the Commodore 64 port and having it crash on me midway through a loading screen, I cut my losses. Shame, the ZX Spectrum version is a thing of beauty.

[caption id="attachment_393303" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Sega Genesis (1991, Tengen)

The Genesis/Mega Drive version of Pit-Fighter is probably the best of the bunch, and I’m not sure that’s really a compliment. I think my fascination with it is more that it makes the game look magnitudes goofier. The digitized actors have lost a lot of fidelity, so it loses much of the oily BDSM club imagery. However, in its place, the quality and quantity of animation frames haven’t been increased, so everything has ?this delectable veneer of jank.

You only get three continues in this version, but the combination of easily exploitable moves and the relative passiveness of the opponents make it possible to get to the end. If you had to play a home console port of Pit-Fighter, this one at least meets the “so bad it’s good�threshold. It kind of?? proves that a bad port of kusoge isn’t necessarily just a bad game; it might just be a new flavor of kusoge.

[caption id="attachment_393302" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Super Nintendo (1991, THQ)

Pit-Fighter on SNES had to have been rushed. It released the same year the SNES did, which kind of demonstrates an effort to get it on the market?? during the fevered euphoria of a new console release. I??t doesn’t even try to replicate the UI, instead opting for something that looks like it’s from a development build.

The most egregious part about it is the AI, which seems to just be mashing v?arious inputs. They’re extremely aggressive, and then when they get near you, their movements make no sense. They’ll jump randomly and start throwing attacks with no rhyme or reason. Then, once they knock you to the ground, they’ll continue to do little hops between stomping on you. It’s bizarre.

There are also no continues. I had absolutely no hope of making it to the Chainman. I’m not the only one, either, as complaints about? the port’s difficulty seem rather pervasive. ??I searched to see if there was a buried continue input and instead found the advice to just keep mashing R while using Ty to win. Weirdly, I think this is the absolute worst of the versions listed here.

[caption id="attachment_393298" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Atari Lynx (1992, Atari Games)

I have a soft spot for the Atari Lynx. It was a battery-sucking handheld you could land a harrier jet on. However, a huge portion of its library was coin-op ports, and that’s kind of what the system was worst at. Nowhere is this more apparent than, perhaps, Pit-Fighter.

The screen is far too low resolution to really depict the game’s digitized actors, but they tried it anyway. As a result, the sprites are pretty dopey looking, and it uses a palette that is large?ly just greys and beiges. It does try to get the sprite scaling in there, though. As you move further back from the front of the arena, the fighters appear smaller. It’s better to fight closer to the screen since then you can at least make out what things are supposed to be.

Thankfully, that’s an option, since the AI is dumb as rocks. Each fighter’s special move is mapped to the Option 1 button, which means you can just spam it, but I found this to be unreliable. The best way I found to fight is to just stand still and hold down the kick button. It uses a turbo function so once one kick is complete, your fighter immediately launches another one. Th?ere are only 6 continues to get you through to the end of the game, which didn’t even come close for me. However, try as I might, I couldn’t find a better strategy than just letting them run into my foot.

[caption id="attachment_393299" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Game Boy (1992, THQ)

The port for Nintendo’s monochromatic wonder, the Game Boy, is not as bad as you might think. It plays better than the Atari Lynx version. The AI is more dynamic and closer to the arcade version, and the moves feel more responsive with ??better hit detection.

The problem is with the graphics. They still try to use the digitized actors, but when you cram too much information on the classic Game Boy’s limited palette, ?you just get a fuzzy mess. What’s worse is that most of it blends into the background, so the best way to track ??the combatants is by their much darker pants. It’s like playing a fight between a pair of disembodied pants.

Pit-Fighter is practically incomprehens??ible on an original model Game Boy. Using a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Advance makes things better, but still not all that great.

I initially thought this version was really difficult. It doesn’t allow you to continue without a code (Hold down and hit A on the game over screen), and when the AI gets the advantage on you, it can really lead to a pounding. But then I once again discovered the technique of letting opponents walk into your outstretched foot. I also iterated on this by pulling off a super kick while an enemy started their animation to get up from being knocked down. They’d stand up right into the kick. It carried me right to the end. Thatâ€?™s how effective it was.

[caption id="attachment_393301" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Sega Master System (1991, Domark)

For whatever reason, the Master System version of Pit-Fighter was the one that fin?ally decided to get creative with the graphics in order to better serve the gameplay. It shrinks down all the characters, and the tweaked color palette makes things more legible. The handheld versions probably should have done this, but here we are. It’s a shame that th??is foundation wasn’t tweaked for a Sega Game Gear version.

On the other ha??nd, it’s not really that much fun to play. I think this is largely because my exploitative strategies don’t work here. The legs of your tiny fighter are much too short to keep their opponent at bay for too long. The Master System controllers only have two buttons (no start or select), so your repertoire is more limited than other platforms. I was at least able to make it up to the Chainman’s stage. I needed to find out how his underwear looks in this art style.

Only released in the UK, the Master System version also has this weirdly enjoyable soundtrack that is credited to “The Doomsday Machine.�It sounds inappropriately chirpy compared to the subject matter, but considering most of the other ??ports sound horrible, I’ll take it.

A sketch of kusoge

Arcade ports like we saw in the �0s and �0s are rather rare today. I mean, for one thing, in this part of the world, arcades are practically extinct. But then, they also ??tend to have more universal hardware powering them and are built on common engines, so it’s less of an issue to transplant them accurately to other hardware. Older games are a different story, as they require some form of emulation. Still, a developer is more likely to release something accurate than to take li??berties with a game.

I’m not exactly nostalgic for those days. I hate having to worry about whether or not I’m playing the definitive version of a game. However, there’s a weird creativity that arose from the challenges of transplanting games. Ganbare Goemon on Famicom, for example, was initially an attempt to port Mr. Goemon f?rom arcades?? and instead mutated into a sprawling series.

More often than not, you just took the version for whatever was your favorite platform at the time. Then, you had to hope that the publisher cared enough about the game to provide you with a reasonable facsimile. Will a version of Space Harrier provide you with a fun experience, or will it be a janky cash grab? That little gamble is often more fun than the version you eventually wind up with, especially in the case of Pit-Fighter.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post It’s time to oil up with the ports of Pit-Fighter appeared first on Destructoid.

Time for fisticuffs

Something of a hidden gem has finally received an English localization, albeit from fans. Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero (hereby known as Shockman Zero) is an entry in the Shockman series of games. While the series is better known for its entries on the PC-Engine/Turbografx-16, it got its sole Super Famicom release in 1997 via the Satellaview. Over here in the west, we only received Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman 2 in 1992 as Shockman, though it later saw re-release on Nintendoâ€?™s Virtual Console service on Wii and Wii U.

The Satellaview was an early digital download platform for the Super Famicom, which meant that after that service went offline, the title was no longer available. However, it got re-released in cartridge format via Columbus Circle in 2017. You can still find it available in some places if you’ve got a Super F?amicom to stick it in.

[caption id="attachment_360788" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Romhacking.net[/caption]

Shockman Zero is a delicious mix of Mega Man-style platformer and beat-’em-up. It’s as if the Blue Bomber defeated Fist Man and learned to throw hands. It has a distinct Japanese flavor that reminds me of Gunstar Heroes. It’s also a co-op, so you can smite baddies with a frien?d.

The translation comes courtesy of homebrewers Svambo and Anonymousse However, as this was a Japanese-only release previously, this might be the closest we ever get to an official translation. That is, unless a publisher wants to assemble all these games in a collection, which you could absolutely count me on board for. Stranger things have happened, like the upcoming Jajamaru Collections, for example.

The post Kaizou Cho?ujin Shubibinman Zero has been fan translated as Shockman Zero appeared first on Destructoid.

Vote Haggar

In the debate between 1989’s Final Fight and 1991’s Streets of Rage, I’m in the latter camp. Don’t get me wrong, I love Final Fight and understand that Streets of Rage was just Sega’s answer to Capcom porting their seminal brawler to the SNES. I also realize that Streets of Rage is a blatant rip-off of Final Fight. However, I j??ust love the sense of style and the ??fact that it’s better suited to consoles.

However, Streets of Rage doesn’t have Mike Haggar, former pro-wrestler and beloved mayor of Metro City. Haggar is amazing not just because he’s built like a pizza oven, but also because his backstory is so sparse you can apply whatever features you want onto him. Is he a mayor who only knows how to address crime with his fists? Maybe. Or perhaps he was working on addressing crime through social support programs to help the vulnerable popu??lation and guide them to making better choices than crime. Then Mad Gear kidnaps his daughter, so he has to put that on hold while he pile-drives some punks. He doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.

Unfortunately, Final Fight was clearly made for arcades, which made its Super Nintendo port a bit of a disappointment. It was made to eat quarters, and when you add on limited lives, it becomes a near-impossible endeavor. Also, it was sing?le-player, which is just bizarre.

Final Fight would ??get tw??o sequels that were exclusively on the SNES. There’s a good reason why they’re not quite as well-remembered as the original, but Mike Haggar is still in it, so I don’t care.

Guy's Fiancee's Sister

I’m not going to try and convince you that 1993 Final Fight 2 is as worth playing as the original arcade title, but there are two ways that it’s better than the original SNES port. Firs?t, it has two-player co-op. Beat-’em-ups are best enjoyed with friends, always. Secondly, one of the playable characters is a female ninja. The first game completely omitted the fairer ??sex when it comes to playability. However, this doesn’t really matter much because I’m only interested in playing as Mike Haggar.

This time around, the whole kidnapping thing is a mess. Guy’s fiancee, Rena, has been kidnapped along with his sensei. So Guy’s fiancee’s sister joins Mike Haggar and some other dude to get them ba?ck. It’s the Mad Gear gang again, but rather than just being some local roughs, they’re all over Europe. That kind of international expansion seems like quite a step up.

It’s really just an excuse to have Mayor Fridge pile-drive abroad. Unfortunately, the locals are kind of lame. All the colors are muddy and washed out, and Holland is full of landmines for some reason. I dunno. I guess riding a train through London might be a bit better than suplexing Beefeaters in front of Buckingham Palace. Wait, no it isn’t�/p>

Chest Toupee

It’s a lot more monotonous than the first game in the series, which wasn’t all that varied, to begin with. There’s a very small collection of enemies, and while Andore/Hugo shows up, Poison doesn’t. In fact, no women do in the North American version. I understand that Nintendo was pretty cagey about having women ??as villains in fighting games, but it doesn't r?eally help the visual diversity when every dude's a dude.

Even the bosses aren’t all that special. Sometimes, I wasn’t even certain I was fig??hting a boss at all because the music wouldn’t change. The second boss looks vaguely like Macho Man Randy Savage with a chest toupee, ??but that’s the only reason I remember him.

Speaking of the music, it’s awful. I don’t usually bring up soundtracks unless they’re really good or really bad, and Final Fight 2 fits into the second category. I don’t know how this happened, as it was created by a group of Capcom composers, many of whom worked on the publisher’s Mickey & Minnie games. The tracks just seem to be meandering messes with no core theme. Not that I really remember Final Fight’s soundtrack v?ery we?ll, but I don’t recall it being this bad.

Doable difficulty

On the plus side, however, Final Fight 2 is a perfectly serviceable beat-’em-up. While I have my complaints, there are ones out there that are substantially worse. The gameplay in Final Fight 2 is in the upper regions of okay. The grabs have always been my favorite part of the series, and Final Fight 2 allows Mike Haggar to grab an enemy, then jump high into the air to slam them back down in a s??pinning piledriver. Yes. Even if the ??overall package is a little bland, I can’t knock the combat.

Plus, as I mentioned before, this supports a second player, which means it’s a great little title to break out in the afternoon with a chum. Unlike the SNES port of the original game, getting through it on its default difficulty is t?otally doable. A little tricky but more in line with the difficulty of other console beat-’em-ups.

The greatest

Final Fight only had one true classic in the series, and that was Final Fight. But if you want more than ?that, the SNES sequels are as close as you’ll get. They’re not bad. They’re just not great, either. I kind of wish Capcom put their whole ass into creating some great platforms t??o showcase Mike Haggar, but we remain to be weirdly deficient.

And that’s a shame because Mike Haggar is the greatest. What they really need to do is add Mike Haggar to Streets of Rage 4??, because then we’d have the perfect beat-’em-up. I’m not sure how anyone would make that happen, but if I had three wishes, that would be one of them. The main reason why I chose this game for my column was so I could talk about Mike Haggar. You can mark my words that this won’t be the last time you find me writing about Mike Haggar. Vote Mike Haggar.

For other retro titles you may have ??missed, click? right here!

The post Final Fight 2 on SNES i?s bare??ly more final than the original appeared first on Destructoid.

Dr. Grant!

The 1993 film Jurassic Park is fun for t??he whole fa??mily! It has dismemberment. It has people getting a face full of raptor. There’s Jeff Goldblum! There are kids in it, allowing the little buggers to have some escapism in a horrific world of science gone wrong.

It’s definitely not the most audience-confused license out there. Robocop had plenty of dick-shooting and melty-men, and everyone on the schoolyard talked about it. At least Robocop had a plot that lent itself well to video games. Jurassic Park was too sus?penseful to be a side-scroller, but that didn’t mean companies w??eren’t going to try.

Most of them were ba??d. The ones that people say were pretty good? Those were bad, too. The SNES version? It’s not great. But someone on the development team obviously had a lot of fun with it, and that alone is kind of infectious.

Karate chop action

Jurassic Park is the story of how Newman from Seinfeld ruined a perfectly good business venture. By combining the juices of mosquitos and amphibians, dinosaurs are brought back?? from extinction, and after millions of years of extinction,? they’re hungry. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to root for the worst people in existence: tourists. They want to go home.

The plot of the SNES version follows Dr. Alan Grant as he tries to re-extinct the dinosaurs. Actually, the main objective is the same as the movie: go home. However, Newman ma?de things really difficult, and Dr. Grant first has to reactivate all the park’s systems in order to call his mother to pick him up. He also really hates raptors,? so maybe kill them, too.

I’m deliberately trying to make it sound ridiculous, of course??, but marketing already does a good job of it on its own. When I was a kid, I had a Jeff Goldblum action figure. He came with a rocket launcher. That’s hilarious, considering all he does in the movie is get hurt and lay around sexily.

Check for the JP mark

The basic gameplay of Jurassic Park is a lot like Metal Gear. You roam around the world and try to find stuff that lets you go to other parts of the world. Thatâ€??™s fine. However, whenever you go into a building, you get some first-person dungeon crawling. In 1993 on the SNES, this was amazing. Wolfenstein 3D came out the year before, and it required an IBM PC-Compatible with a VGA graphics card. This was pure, unadulterated first-person shooter gameplay on your home console.

Okay, it was kind of adulterated. For resolution reasons, your view of amazing walls is contained within the frame of scuba goggles. There are also exactly two enemies in this view of reality, the dilophosaur that has its roots planted and spits and the raptor that actually moves. It’s about as basic as you can really get, but I don’t want to undersell it. This was a licensed movie game, and someone thought it would be rad if part of it played like Wolfenstein 3D. Of course, they were right.

What the first-person sections lack ?in action, they make up for in creepy atmosphere. The fact that the hallways and caves of Isla Nublar aren’t crammed with enemies just makes it seem kind of eerie. This seems intentional because the music in these areas reflects the mood. Then the elevators play elevator music, which is a nice touch.

It’s also amusing because the soundtrack is amazing everywhere else. It’s like, “we couldn’t get John Williams, but here’s something the kids can dance to.�I suppose when you can’t get the rights to us?e the actual movie soundtrack, the next best thing is Jonathan Dunn.

That kid is a jerk

While impressive from a technical soundtrack, and probably way more effort than such a licensed game required, actually playing Jurassic Park isn’t as exciting. Anyone who experienced the game will likely point out the same problem: there is no saving. There’s no battery backup or password system, and finishing it will take at least 5 hours. That’s if you manage to survive, which isn’t as easy as it sounds since Jurassic Park loves to i??nsta-kill you out of no?where. Tyrannosaurs and triceratops burst from the trees with little warning, leaving you unable to react.

One kid in school told me it was possible to kill the ?T-rex. That kid is a jerk.

The other major problem with Jurassic Park is the efficiency in its world. There is a tremendous amount of backtracking. A lot of this is because there are locked doors in buildings that require you to first obtain keys found in other areas. It’s not so obtuse that? you’re going to need to start keeping notes, but it d??oes mean that you might be traipsing back and forth between buildings quite a bit.

There’s also the added bit of collecting raptor eggs that are scattered around the overworld. I’m? not even sure if they’re necessary to complete the game, but I did it anyway. ?I feel rather accomplished. Maybe that’s the benefit of having no save feature.

That is one big pile of okay

Really, though, that lack of save feature is a huge embuggerance. I never actually owned Jurassic Park when I was younger, I just rented it a whole bunch. I dreamt of escaping the island, and it was only recently that I sat down and completed the game, much to the chagrin of my couch. The ending was nothing special, but I will say ??that it was worth playing. Maybe in a format that allows save states.

The SNES version of Jurassic Park was an inventive adaptation of the license. It feels like one of the programmers was noodling around with ray casting on the console, and this provided an opportunity to use whatever prototype they came up with. For a historical perspective, the very next year, the Sega Genesis would get Zero Tolerance which had more graphical trickery to it. The FPS genre moved and changed really quickly during that time span. Jurassic Park might not seem all that impressive today, but for a kid who dreamt of having Doom ??on her console, this was really close if you squinted hard enough.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Jurassic Park on SNES doesn’t have enough Jeff Goldblum appeared first on Destructoid.

Ahead of the November 2022 launch, here's a bit of gameplay from the remake

Certain video game sound effects never quite leave us, and I can safely say that the "smacking a caveman" noise from Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics is still living in my head rent-free all these years later. It may not be my favorite arcade-ish action-platformer series, but I've got ??a soft spot for it in a surprisingly deep sea of retro caveman games.

As previously announced, Joe & Mac is coming back this year with a remake called New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja �and her??e's a (ridiculously) quick look at it in action.

//youtu.be/VEtrfSIQCPQ

This Data East revival is being developed by Mr. Nutz Studio and Microids, who also handled the Toki remake, and while the spruced-up new art will be a hard sell for some, I'm happy to see this dinosaur-whacking duo back in action; I?'ll take?? what I can get!

After seeing this footage, I'm not any more or less "sold" on the remake's clean ne?w art than before. It's something I'll likely get used to over time. It is an adjus?tment.

Along with the original arcade experience, New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja will have a "longer version of the story mode" under an Extended banner. The remake is also bringing back two-player co-op and including a speedrun mode, training, and even a boss r??ush.

Microids showed off the physical T-Rex Edition

The PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch physical copies of New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja come with t??wo sticker sheets, a retro trading card, and a tyrannosaurus keychain.

[caption id="attachment_342249" align="alignnone" width="1128"] _{What's included in the T-Rex Edition for PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.}[/caption]

The game is al?so launching on ?Xbox Series X/S and PC, albeit only as a digital release.

In all cases, New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja will release in November 2022.

If you're feeling nostalgic and you've got a (basic) Nintendo Switch Online subscription, you can revisit Joe & Mac and Joe & Mac 2 in the SNES l?ibrary. I vastly prefer the sequel, especially after comparing notes with Chris Moyse, but you do you.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzVZKissEIc

The post New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja is out in November with a physical edition appeared first on Destructoid.

This person "casually found" game-changing cheat codes for character select and multiplayer

A new string of Super Punch-Out cheat code combinations is now lurking about, thanks to community member Unlisted Cheats (who uncovers old school cheats mostly for the NES, Game Boy, and SNES systems).

The first code allows players to access a level select, likely serving as a debug feature. The next code is even more fascinating, as it lets a second player take control of a CPU opponent, to create a "versus" like system. These codes in tandem must have been really useful in testing balance changes. I'm definitely going to be playing as Narcis Prince imm??ediately. Y?ou can find out how to use them below.

Amazingly, these codes do work in the Switch Online version of the game, so you don't need the original hardware. How's that for relevance! Honestly, it's been too long since Punch-Out was in the zeit?geist. I can't believe that the last major release was in? 2009!

The Super Punch-Out fighter select cheat code

All combinations must be held on? Joypad [controller] 2. Then press A or start on Joypad 1.

At the title, hold Y+R, then press A or start.

The Super Punch-Out multiplayer cheat code

R??eminder: All ?combinations must be held on Joypad 2. Then press A or start on Joypad 1.

In the above free match mode, at the character info screen, hold B??+Y then press A or start.

//twitter.com/n??ew_cheats_n??ews/status/1556727895778856960

The post This newly discovered Super Punch-Out cheat code i?s incredibl?e, works with Switch Online version appeared first on Destructoid.

90 Minutes European Prime Goal was the final piece of the puzzle

This incredible SNES manuals project is finally complete, having secured the last English SNES instruction book they needed. The project recently announced on Twitter that they had acquired a scan for the English manual for 90 Minutes European Prime Goal, which, while not a marquee SNES release,?? was t?he last manual!

As project purveyor Peebs points out, this started as a grassroots effort roughly two years ago to get that number up to 100% from the previous figure of 52%. For reference, that's over 800 manuals that are housed on the site, which you can access directly here. They??'re lived-in, t?oo! You can even see the imperfections and wear and tear on some �in a good way.

Flipping through the project list (which I recommend doing at least once) showcases the raw scope of it. Remember this is every English manual, even ones that are from the NA/PAL regions, as well as manuals with errors or slight phrasing differences. And rather than resting on their laurels, the crew i??s pursuing Super Famicom (J??apan) manual logging as we speak.

SNES manuals aren't the only thing on offer

Of note: the manual project also has Nintendo 64 manuals available, as well as all 22 Virtual Boy games covered. No lie, the latter comes in real handy whenever I bust out my Virtual Boy! Th??ere's some neat IPD (interpupillary distance) configuration type stuff in some of those booklets.

Interestingly, Nintendo still has its archive of NES and SNES manuals up to coincide with the r??elease?? of the "Mini" console lines.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=czWJ-Ys_dOk

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The game that lets families execute each other

I don’t have a great many video game-related stories to tell of my dad. He took the time to join in with the rest of the family back in the day,?? but he was (and basically still is) the primary breadwinner. So, I don’t have any stories of getting deep into co-op or trying to topple a game together, he just didn’t have as much time as my mother did to spend with my sister and me.

I still have some great memories with him, like when mom went out of town and we rented Super Dodge Ball back in the depths of my long-term storage. There was also the time that he was playing Super Pinball: Behind the Mask, and I caught a recording of his losing profanity on my Yak Bak. Th??e swear drop stayed on that little device until time and a finite bat??tery erased it.

But my favorite is his brief addiction to 1992's Rampart on the Super Nintendo. My parents had a TV in their room (which wasn’t common in the �0s), and he hooked the SNES up to it so he could play it at night. I’d find myself falling asleep to the sound of him furiously mashing buttons in the next room. He could never beat that Kraken. Well, all these years later, ?I beat the Kraken, so this one’s for you, dad.

Rampart was a 1991 Atari arcade game. In something that feels like a precursor to the tower defense genre, it was your goal to keep your castle walls maintained using blocks while ?also fending off invading ships. You kept going until your base was finally over??run, at which point it was time to feed the machine another quarter.

The multi-player was particularly interesting, however. Up to three players blast at each other’s castles, then try to repair before time runs out each turn. Whoever can’t put a complete wall up around the citadel loses. Only a few ports preserved the three-player mode, and the SNES version of Rampart was not one of the??m. It’s still?? pretty fun with two players, though.

Like many arcade games of the day, there were a lot of ports, and they’re definitely not all created equal. Konami, for example, did a version for Famicom that featured different time periods. The SNES version of Rampart, however, maybe the best one, even when removed from my obvious nostalgia for it. Ho??w? Mode-7. Everybody loves Mode-7, the SNES scaling technique that allowed it to create 3D-ish environments. We can’t be friend?s if you don’t.

It actually changes the main campaign completely. There’s still a “Normal�mode if you want to fight waves of dudes, but “Super�is where it’s at. It’s?? an extensive survival challenge that? makes bizarre additions such as bosses and bonus rounds. Rather than just fighting waves of dudes, your goal is to wipe all the ships that circle your territory. You have to stay alive, expand your holds, and build up your armaments until you overcome the spawn rate and make the seas safe again.

Most essentially, ?you’re trying to make sure that none of the ships land, because that’s how you get ants. Don’t ask me, they m?ight be battering rams, but they look like ants. These insects then swarm the nearest citadel, and if it isn’t walled up, will tear it down. They also get everywhere and make building hard, so prevention is the best extermination.

Unique to Super Rampart are bosses, which are unfortunately sparse, but an interesting way to?? switch things up and get creative with the game’s mechanics. They require you to employ different tactics than you would when just fighting against the ships. For example, the aforementioned Kraken hurls boulders at you, which then scatters rocks that you can’t build upon. There are four citadels, and you must constantly build new forts to keep yourself in the game.

There are also additions found in other ports of the game, like a 3x3 cannon and a propaganda balloon. These make more sense in multiplayer, where the super cannon sprea??ds fire which can’t be built upon and the propaganda takes control of another player’s cannon.

They also increased the variety?? of blo??cks to build with, which is more of a curse than a blessing. Having giant pieces to quickly repair your walls with may sound brillo, but when you’re trying to patch small holes that have been plucked through, you’ll be cursing every time a massive block turns up. You’re better off just dropping them onto the map in a random spot until you get the one you need.

The Super mode in Rampart SNES has 15 levels, which feels like the magic number. There’s a password system to get you back to where y??ou left off. The actual challenge of the stages have a rough incline of difficulty, but they sometimes get extremely hard out of nowhere, such as the case of the Kraken. It’s really not the most polished product, but I wouldn’t fault it for lack of content.

My mother and I spent a lot of time on the multi-player back in the day. We’d sometimes play somewhat peacefully and just bu?ild the big??gest forts we could before inevitably betraying each other. There are a lot of techniques you can play with to finally topple your enemy. For example, cannons can only take a certain amount of damage before they turn into metal slags that cannot be removed or built over. Using these to create narrow chokepoints that necessitate a specific block type can frustrate another player.

Most versions of Rampart have this dark little aside after a winner is declared. Simply, one player executes the other. While this was commonly using a guillotine, in the SNES version, you make them walk the plank.?? I don’t know why, but my mother and I found this hilarious when I was a kid, but I think it also gradually traumatized me every time I actually considered the implications. The �0s sure were dark times.

Rampart is a fun game to begin with, and while the SNES port is hardly the most faithful, I feel it’s the versi??on that best fits on consoles. Its campaign just presents a more consistent progressio??n than the play-until-you-lose mentality of the arcade. More could have been done with it, but the developer could have also gotten away with a straight port, so the fact that they put in the extra effort is admirable.

It’s somewhat surprising that more wasn’t done with Rampart. While it was created by Atari Games and landed in Midway’s library before they went defunct and it went to Warner Bros. But they’ve really done nothing with Midway’s catalog in a long time, and that’s really unfortunate. Rampart isn’t the only game from them that could use a modern up??date. The SNES ?and Famicom versions are really the closest we’ve had to someone trying to build on the formula. You could argue that the tower defense genre has superseded it, but�You’d have a point.

For other retro titles you may have m?issed, click right here!

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Every time we flash the Die Fledermaus signal, he unplugs his phone and leaves town for a week

Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is the best Christmas movie for people who don’t want to commit to the whole cheer thing. A lot of people say Die Hard, and I love Die Hard, but it doesn’t have Batman in it. It also doesn’t have Danny DeVito eating fish, so I?? think ?I rest my case.

Batman Returns would be mashed into game form on a stupid number of platforms and some of them were actually good! Almost all of them were entirely different games, however. You got a completely different experience depending on what console you played it on. Potentially the best Batman Returns version, however, for the SNES.

Superhe?ro beat-’em-ups were a dime a dozen on the SNES and Genesis. Take a spin on the wheel, you’re either going to get a passible one or a title that’s just plain awful. They’re going to sell based on who’s on the cover, so why put any effort into them.

Some were decent, though. Batman Returns on the SNES comes to us from Konami while they were still in their prime. To give you an idea of the talent on hand, Etsunobu Ebisu �Ebisumaru himself �is credited for planning and programmin??g. It’s interesting to see such names on a ??licensed game based on an American movie.

It’s also nice to see the score is based on Danny Elfman’s themes. While 1990’s Batman on the NES was pretty convincing in telling us they weren’t needed, I’m steadfast in my belief that Batman’s real theme is th??e one that Danny Elfman composed. Probably because I grew up with the Animated Series, but I’m too old to change my opinion.

Batman Returns is pretty standard for conveyer belt beat-’em-ups. The controls are rather close to Streets of Rage. You technically have one attack button but can pair it with jumps and grabs. The great thing about the grabs is that they’re absolutely brutal. By default, Ba?tman just slams ?the enemy into the ground, but if you move towards pieces of the set, you can bash them against windows and railings. You can also grab two enemies and slam them into each other, which is pretty ambitious for an SNES game.

It certainly doesn’t r?einvent the wheel. The only wrinkle it really puts in the tapestry is some side-scrolling levels and a driving stage. There’s even a special move that attacks in all directions but damages your health, and screen-clearing bombs. It’s more or less jus?t following the recipe.

The combat is just so powerful and impactful. It reminds me slightly of The Death and Return of Superman, but a ?little tighter and more reliable. You’re ju??st bashing dudes.

Streets of Rage but with Batman is a pretty easy sell for me, but Batman Returns does have its deficiencies, many of which it shares with its contemporaries. Your opponents, for example, are lacking in variety. They’re all clowns. All of them. Different types of clowns, sure, but clowns. That’s pretty true to the movie, but I feel like a street tough or two could be thrown in. Of course, then I remember that my beloved Streets of Rage has you fight palette swaps of thugs for the entirety o?f the game, and things begin to make more sense.

There’s also no co-op, which is also true to the movie because this is before things were ruined by Robin. Still, I feel co-op is an? important feature?? when it comes to trashing clowns. Maybe Catwoman could have stood in? She was sort of grey. Or better yet, just throw in Alfred. It would be amazing.

The bosses are?? also cheap, which is true to the �0s beat-’em-up. You’ll probably d?rop the most lives on them, rather than all the children’s entertainers you’re savaging on the street.

Another complaint, there’s no fight against Christopher Walken. Sure, I don’t think Christopher Walken deserves to get beaten up by Batman, I just feel like ??it’s something I want to e??xperience.

The game’s also rather brief �again, typical of the genre at the time �however, Konami’s love of limited continues gets in the way. It may take a few attempts before you reach the end, but it’s at least doable, unlike the port of Final Fight on the SNES.

That means it doesn’t overstay its welcome, which was a problem encountered by a certain other superhero game of its genre. And really, if they were just planning on showing off t??he same dingy streets and the same make-up wearing ??freaks for the entire runtime, best wrap it up early.

Yet, what’s there is incredibly solid. The combat has a good sense of physicality, the aesthetic is true to the movie, and it’s the chance to experience what it’s like to be Michael Keaton. I may be a bit biased because I absolutely love Batman Returns fo??r SNES and Konami’s early work, but�that’s it. That’s my whole point. I might be a bit biased. Do with that what? you will.

For other retro titles you may h?ave missed, click right here!

The post Batman Re?turns for the SNES is the best game that lets you play as Mich??ael Keaton appeared first on Destructoid.

I'll give you my Super Scope when you pry it from my cold, dead hands

I remember a lot of the stupid discussions that were had on the schoolyard. Mario should have a gun. Zelda would be cooler if there were guns. Kirby needs a rocket launcher. Apparently, in the �0s, guns were just the height of cool. You’d brag about it if your parents let you watch Robocop, and therefore everything needed to be Robocop.

Strangely, though, the concept of Mario with a gun did happen. Yoshi’s Safari. It was one of the gam??es that supported the Super Scope, and it was completely batshit.

I get it. I do. Nintendo’s fancy new peripheral needed their key m??ascot to help sell units. Never mind the fact that Mario doesn’t look quite right with a rocket launcher over his shoulder, that’s probably why this game is in the first perso??n.

Yoshi’s Safari is a game about mercilessly gunning down wildlife as it crosses the road. I’d say that Mario has finally lost it, but really, murdering animals is what he does as a hobby. This is th??e first time that he’s brought his second amendment rights into the mix, however.

This time around, Mario’s massacre is in the Jewelry Kingdom. Bowser and his illegitimate children have kidnapped the country’s leaders, as well as their 12 jewels, and demand that their kingdom be recognized be the United Nations. Mario, a special agent in the Mushroom Kingdom’s foremost espionage a??gency, has to go and defuse the situation by any means necessary.

I’m sorry, I seem to be having troubl??e? keeping to one headcanon.

Regardless of whatever pretense I make up, the goal is to blast your way along a series of ??roads, then take out the bosses. There are multiple routes you can take in any given stage, but they all lead to the big baddie at the end.

Truthfully, Yoshi’s Safari isn’t that bad. I’m something of a Super Scope apologist, and while I’d typically point to Battle Clash as what you should play with it, Yoshi’s Safari is rather inoffensive. If there’s a problem with it, it’s the absolute lack of challenge. They maybe had a younger audience in mind when they made this, bu?t you can absolutely plow through the entire game in an afternoon.

Gam??eplay-wise, it’s your usual fodder enemies and weak-point bosses. It’s not the most inventive game, but the main has you riding atop Yoshi over mode-7 terrain. While, cynically, it’s just a shooting gallery with a moving background, the addition of jumps and different routes keeps things a bit interesting.

If you have a second player who is clearly beneath you on the social totem pole, you can hand them a controller, and they can steer Yoshi as he moves on rails while you have all the fun. It’s sort of like having someone play as Tails in Sonic the Hedgehog 2; they’re not really c??o??ntributing, but maybe pressing buttons will make them shut up.

The enemy types are fairly diverse, and the bosses can be fun. There’s one boss with a weak poin?t on its crotch, which I’m always a fan of. I mean, when you’re just pasting targets on a 2D image and trying not to put it the same place each time, one is eventually going to land between the legs.

Speaking of severe pain, all the Koopalings pilot these robots that look like animals for some reason.?? What’s bizarre about them is that most of them react to being shot. Like, pained expressions. Faces c?ontorting in agony as you deliver shots to their personal weak spots. Why would you design a robot that feels pain? Is it so that it can better understand the cruelty of a world where plumbers mercilessly annihilate everything in their path? This isn’t science, it’s madness!

Also, they’re pretty uneven in their difficulty. As I said, Yoshi’s Safari is pretty lacking in challenge, but ?the hardest fight I experienced was against a pack of B?oos, and that wasn’t placed anywhere special.

If you have a Super Scope, your options for games to play with it are pretty limited. In fact, aside from Battle Clash and its sequel, Metal Combat: Falcon’s Revenge, most aren’t worth it. You also need a CRT TV for the Super Scope to even work. It’s a sad st?ate.

Sadder still is that Nintendo isn’t likely going to re-release these games. They seem to like pretending that Yoshi’s Safari didn’t happen. It was released as something of?? a last effort to make the Super Scope releva??nt, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe kids really do need more than just giving Mario a gun.

I guess what you can take from all this is that you should play Battle Clash and Metal Combat. Yoshi’s Safari can stay in the dust bin, but those two games don’t deserve obscurity. They’re like Punch-Out!! played with a light gun. Big and bright and colourful, packed to the brim? with ridiculous personality.

What were we ta??lk??ing about? Oh, right: Mario has completely snapped.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Yoshi’s Safari is what happens when Mario finally snaps appeared first on Destructoid.

Share your SNES memories and the last game you played

North America is celebrating 30 years of Super Nintendo today, and it's a system we have such fond memories of. So to the tune of Little River Band, let's go reminiscing.

While many of us have ample room in our hearts for a lot of retro video game consoles, none resonate with me quite like the SNES. This was my favorite system growing up in the '90s, and it remains my favorite to this day �I'm still out here researching, buying, playing, and even just listening to Super Nintendo games on a pretty?? much weekly basis.

//twitter.com/Nint?end??oAmerica/status/1429820774907584512?s=20

Do you have that one cherished console you'd grab and take with you in an emergency we-gotta-leave-now situation? The SNES is mine, for sure, though it's not a fun mental exercise to work through, and I'd struggle to whittle down a list of favorite titles to a single best-of-the-best pick. There are too many to name �too many games that hold up favorably to this day �but I guess I'd save my original Donkey Kong Country 2 cartridge for sen?timental reasons. It took me whole summers to see everything that game had to offer.

As much as major anniversaries like this can instantly make us feel old, when I think about the Super Nintendo, it's like I'm a kid again. Drifting away in class daydreaming about an unbelievable boss I faced the night before in Yoshi's Island, rushing to finish homework so I'd be able to make a little more progress, those amazing trips to a friend?'s house or a rental store to maximize my budget-constrained gami??ng �those were such great days.

Although I appreciate save states and other niceties for games like EarthBound and Super Castlevania IV, there's ?no greater feeling to me than slotting in a cart (maybe with a bit of rental-sticker residue) and playing with my original still-hanging-in-there gamepad.

Whether you're still playing Super Nintendo games today with your original now-yellowed system, a hobbyist product like the Super Nt or MiSTer, a modded-out mini console like the Super NES Classic Edition, or your Nintendo Switch's eclectic virtual library, we want to hear about it. Your memories, in general, but also the last game you played.

A few stray Super Nintendo thoughts from the Destruct?oid st??aff to kick us off:

• "F-Zero was the most futuristic game ever." -CJ
• "Super Mario World is still the pinnacle of platforming for me. I know that's not an original take but only like, Celeste has come close to capturing how good SMW feels to play." -Eric
• "I've only played a tiny bit of SNES. My ex had the Classic and we got addicted to playing Dr. Mario. I hate to say it, but it was before my time." -Noelle
• "I was so happy when I got my SNES, I couldn't picture gaming ever getting better. That was 30 years ago. Super Ghouls n' Ghosts was something else. Just the opening map screen. That synth and stereo audio. It was like... How can we have this technology in our house?" -Moyse
• "Wasn't joking: SNES was the pinnacle for several genres. As technology advanced very few dared to make a game as open-ended and freeing as Chrono Trigger." -Chris

The post 30 years later, the Super Nintendo is still an all-time great, so let’s reminisce appeared first on Destructoid.

This ~aesthetic~

We've got a new Metroid coming up this year, and lately, Nintendo has been reminiscing about the whole storied series to get everyone in that lone hunter state of mind again. As neat as it is to dig back into the Chozo lore, above all, I'm here for some sick artwork.

Today was the day, as Nintendo shared several pieces of high-res Super Metroid art including Samus, her Gunship, Ridley, and Kraid. I'm sure you?'v?e seen some if not all of this familiar imagery before, but probably not with this enhanced level of detail.

Either way, it's Super Metroid �any chance to bring it up is fine by me.

It's genuinely neat to revisit this decades-old art, and while fans are out there doing ?their absolute best to preserve games and their supplemental materials, all too often, the companies behind them could stand to do so much more to keep these legacies intact and accessible to new players. On the topic of Super Nintendo games, at least this one's playable on Nintendo Switch, even if it is relegated to the online subscriber-only library.

After zooming in to appreciate the minor details in Kraid's nasty belly and Ridley's twisted tongue, I feel like I'm fresh out of the optometrist's office with new lenses. It's all so clear. This transports me back to the Nintendo Power days, for sure. I miss those posters!

To extend this little wave of nostalgia while we wait for Metroid Dread, especially if you're thinking of a Super Metroid replay, flip through this upload of the Player's Guide when you've got some time �it's worth a look just for purple-haired Samus. I would've misse??d a bunch of tips, tricks, techniques, and honest-to-goodness secrets without it (and eventually the internet) as a? resource. I'm sure there's still plenty left for me to discover.

The post Nintendo posted high-res Super Metroid art and I’m going to cherish it appeared first on Destructoid.

For once, they're still in stock

[Update: Days after the recent restock, Analogue is still taking orders for the Super Nt, Mega Sg, and DAC, including alternate colorways. I didn't expect that at all given what a hellscape shopping for consumer electronics has been lately. Don't tempt me.]

Analogue has broken its silence �more consoles are popping up next week. On August 9, starting at 8:00 a.m. Pacific, there will be another Super Nt, Mega Sg, and DAC restock, and I already feel anxiety for those of you who will undoubtedly be mashing the add-to-cart button to no avail once the store updates. A word of advice: ?keep at it.

For the August 9 restock, orders will be?? restricted to "two per customer per console." Analogue also expec?ts "all orders" to ship by the end of the week.

These systems play your old Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis carts, and they play them well, so there's a lot of demand, particularly in the last couple of years as nostalgia has reigned supreme in gaming and other hobbies. Whether or not they're "worth it," that's debatable �I think they serve ??a particular type of retro gamer very well.

As a quick pricing recap, the Super Nt costs $189.99, the Mega Sg is also $189.99, and the DAC (a digital-to-analog converter) costs $79.99.?? Tha??t doesn't include shipping, which is honestly pretty pricey �enough to induce groans from Analogue supporters.

I'll be sitting out this restock round, although I will admit, I'??m tempted to complement my Super Nt with the Mega Sg; I've had a wonderful time with the former, even if I never quite use it as much as I'd like. My Sega Genesis collection? is comparatively super lacking, and my heart was �and will always be �with the Super Nintendo, so it is what it is.

It would be nice to score some matching wireless 8BitDo controllers without jumping through hoops, though. I wish they were more???? readily available year-round.

As for the sought-after Analogue Pocket, which can (potentially) play all manner of handheld games and looks so sick, no dice on a restock. That saga is still unfolding.

The post Analogue’s next Super Nt and Mega Sg restock is August 9 (Update) appeared first on Destructoid.

You get one guess, so make it count

I can't stop thinking about it. I just can't shake it. Two haunting words, Jelly Boy, have been rattling around since Nintendo announced the latest Switch ??Online SNES game b?atch.

Those three baffling selections �Claymates, which Chris has a soft spot for; Bombuzal, otherwise known as Kablooey, which one reader described as "a terrible game from a company that went ??under in 1992" and another got in "a fistfight with a friend in middle school" over; and yes, the One with the Jelly �surfaced on Nintendo Switch on July 28.

We're nearing the 50-game mark for Nintendo Switch Online's library of packed-in Super Nintendo games, some of which a true classics, and too many of which could generously be referred to as "oddities." They might get a halfhearted curiosity-driven boot-up, but they're largely forgotten for a reason. While I?? like seeking out weird old funky games as much as the next person, there's a time and place for them, and they really shouldn't come at the expense of other, more deserving candidates. Not exactly a bold take, I know.

I'm not here to dissect Nintendo's plan for the Switch Online retro libraries,?? but the trend of plucking wacky games from the sidelines now seems pretty well-established. Barring a sudden change in selection direction, or a wider shakeup (I've given up on the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance dream), more bizarre SNES finds are surely in our future.

With that in mind, let's have a bit of Friday fun: can we correctly predict the next Switch Online SNES game? I bet we can �but w??e'll probably need to cast a stupidly wide net.

You don't need ?to provide any rhyme or reason or personal history for your choice (though that'll make for better conversation). Honestly, the more erratic, the better the odds.

If you happen to land on the right game, when the next Switch Online SNES news breaks, we'll give you a proper shout-out. Your first guess is the only one that counts!

My too-cool-to-be-correct prediction is Pieces, a jigsaw puzzle battle game from Atlus.

//youtu.be/DQEM2bnntK8
_{[Footage courtesy of Retro Gameplay Channel]}

The post Let’s predict the next out-of-nowhere Switch Online SNES game appeared first on Destructoid.

It might not be practical, but it's so dang cool

Every day on the internet is a chance to see talented people leverage their creativity in wonderful ways. I mean, there's a whole bunch of utter garbage out there, too, but allow me to look on the bright side, if only for a few moments. This project �a pair of custom Pokemon SNES cartridges, one for Red, and one for Blue �turned out brilliantly.

Hats off to the creator, Matthewmods, who also does fancy Game Boy mods. I've thought about entering that particular hobby for years, yet I'm admittedly much more comfortable watching others ??make the most of their handhelds from the stress-free sidelines.

As shared on Reddit, these cartridges are functional and authentic, which means they were a pain to assemble and aren't exactly cost effective. According to Matthewmods, the Pokemon SNES carts "use the internals of a Super Game Boy cart, with a clock speed fix chip and a link port added so that yo??u can actually trade Pokemon via link cable, and authentic Pokemon boards with new batteries installed." The labels are custom.

If these cartridges were mass-produced (and didn't need to absorb al?l of that finicky original har?dware), I'd be all over them. What a cool project and great result.

The post These custom? Pokemon Red and Blue SNES cartridge??s sure are sleek appeared first on Destructoid.

Oh and two other insane games

This is super weird, because I have vivid memories of renting two of the three bizarre SNES games that just arrived?? on the Switch ?Online service this week. I'll start with Claymates, which you should p?robably try, in part because of how ??dang weird it is.

Platformers were a dime a dozen on the NES and SNES, but have you ever pla??yed one with this premise?

"The protagonist of the game is a boy named Clayton, whose scientist father has developed a serum that can transform people into animals when it is combined with clay. Suddenly, Jobo the witch doctor appears and demands the formula for the serum. The father refuses, to which Jobo replies by changing Clayton into a ball of clay and stealing away both his father a?nd the serum."

I thought not! The SNES was a boon for strange concepts, and Claymates was no exception. Playing as a blue ball of goo as your default form, you'll roll around and morph into various animals, all of which control a little d??ifferently.?? It even made a snazzy "blast processing" [blaze processing] joke in 1993 when it was fresh.

Next up is Jelly Boy, a European exclusive that's finally getting a chance overseas, followed by Bombuzal (aka Dynamite Kablooey). The latter has extremely "your parents rented thi?s for you, but oh my God this puzzle game gets insanely hard very quick" vibes and a super weird mascot. Nintendo calls them an "array of quirky and combustible" and they aren't lying!?? If you need convincing that these games are worth dabbling in, check out the video from Nintendo below.

I totally get that people are probably pissed off with the glacial pace t?hat retro games are added to Switch Onl??ine, and giving us three bonkers things probably isn't providing a lot of goodwill. But I'll take weird stuff like this at a faster rate any day of the week.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAN0o4LVT0

Over in Japan, Shin Megami Tensei IF and Dead Dance have been released. Remember, if you have a Japanese eShop account you ?can play them by downloading the app, then logging in with your regular account with Switch Online:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWX1yKttTj8

The post Claymates SNES is ?on Switch now and y’a??ll need to try it appeared first on Destructoid.

Lesson 1

Legendary-ish puzzler Chip’s Challenge is finally getting po??rted to the SNES and Genesis by way of Retro Room Games. It seems a little late. The game was first released on the Atari Lynx in 1989, a handheld that was about the size of an aircraft carrier. It would have been a brillo budget release on c?onsoles back in the �0s, but I guess it’s better late than never.

I actually first experienced Chip’s Challenge back on my Intel 486 powered Windows 3.1 rig. We had The Best of Microsoft Entertainment Pack which got a lot of time dumped into it because what else was I going to play on my new whiz-bang PC? Simgolf, I guess, but not that Simgolf.

Most recently, Chip’s Challenge was re-released on Steam in 2015, along with the previously unpublished Chip’s Challenge 2. It would have been a nice bonus to have both games on cart, but it’s a small operation putting this out. With just Chip’s Challenge, you get 148 puzzles which takes about an eternity to topple on its own. Luckily, there’s a password system, so you ??can pick up where y??ou left off on the Commodore 64.

Largely a block-pushing puzzler, Chip’s Challenge requires you to carefully find your way arou??nd the levels and collect all the microchips. Power-ups allow you to walk on fire or swim through water. It gets to be extremely difficult, as there are plenty of ways to screw up. This version includes a level skip, however, but you’re just cheating yoursel??f by giving up.

Chip’s Challenge will be available in both PAL and NTSC formats on the SNES and Seg?a Genesis (Mega Drive). You can get it with the box and instructions or just the cartridge alone, which I’m now going to refer to as �span data-dobid="hdw">à la cart.�Pre-orders are now open, but I see no word on a window in which it will ship. It’s $49.99 to get the box and instructions with it and $24.99 à la cart.

The post 30 years later, Chip’s Challenge is finally getting a console port appeared first on Destructoid.

Why do the cute ones always play hard to get?

I am lucky enough to have a mother who will play video games with me. It's always been that way. Ages ago, I spoke of our time together with Animal Crossing, but that’s just perhaps the more memorable games we shared. Really, though, we played Super Mario Bros. 3 (I made her play the hard levels, times have really changed), Donkey Kong Country, Stunt Racer FX, Paperboy 2, and on, and on, and on.

Buried way back there in the games we shared was Pocky & Rocky. We rented it a few times, but I don’t really remembe?r getting past the second lev?el. I also didn’t have a hope of understanding the game’s themes, but it was a lot of fun.

It would probably be difficult to convince her to jump back into it with me -- we mostly stick to four-player family games like Mario Golf, Overcooked, Moving Out -- so my husband has become my co-op partner. We have our games together, but I think our biggest conquest was Pocky & Rocky.

Pocky & Rocky is technically the sequel to an arcade game called Kiki Kaikai. I say “technically�because it’s one of those words that I overuse, but also because the games are fairly disparate. It’s the same idea. A top-down shooter where you play as a Shinto Shrine Maiden (or Miko) that throws ofuda scrolls at various yokai and other monsters. Pocky & Rocky or Kiki Kaikai: Nazo no Kuro Manto differs from the arcade original in that it’s more colorful and actuall??y fun. It’s a sugar-fueled update that leaves the original in the dust.

??It was also made 6 years lat?er by a different company.

The biggest change is that there’s now co-op (though, the Famicom Disk System version of Kiki Kaikai also featured co-op), with Pocky being helped by the titular Rocky. It’s sort of a Ganbare Goemon Kid Ying and Dr. Yang butchering of the character names. Rocky isn’t even a raccoon, he’s a tanuki, but let’s not confuse the kids anymore than the pervasive Japanese visuals already do. No one can know about Rocky’s terrifying balls.

The great thing about Pocky & Rocky is its bright, expressive visuals accompanied by cute, chirpy sound effects. It’s not just a top-down shooter, it’s a top-down cuter, get it? It has all the intensity of Commando or Ikari Warriors, but most everything is smiling at you.

You can upgrade your cards in two ways, red and blue. Red turns up the firepower while blue upgrades the spread. You can’t use both, so pick one and avoid the other. You’re also given the ability to slide on your belly to avoid a?ttacks or sweep with your tail or heisoku to destroy ?projectiles. There's also the obligatory screen-clearing bomb. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a solid foundation to build upon.

In fact, it’s fair to say that nothing in Pocky & Rocky was very innovative, but it’s the application that counts here. The game is adorable from tits to toes. The yokai that litter it are wacky and cute, and while there a??re definitely some darker designs within, there’s nothing too intimidating. Its traditional Shinto aesthetic is also a bit of a draw for anyone who digs Japanese folklore.

Don’t get me wrong, however, Pocky & Rocky is tough as nails. Natsume had a contest where you could send proof of completion and receive a t-shirt and certificate. Well, my husband and I did tha??t, c?an we have our bragging rights, Natsume? I don’t see an expiry date on your “Game Master Challenge�and I have video evidence.

It’s not even unfairly tough. Your continues aren’t limited and you have a health gauge. It just constantly throws stuff?? at you until you’re worn down and finally b??low it. Do you save your bomb until the boss? Will you even survive that long?

The whole game is a challenge, and it ramps up quickly. Like I mentioned, I don’t remember beating the second stage as a child. There??’s six altogether, and it can be an endeavor to see the end of them.

There was a sequel, Pocky & Rocky 2, that was decent fun, but I don’t think it managed to meet the standards of the Natsume’s first attempt, but it was close enough. Then the GBA got Pocky & Rocky With Becky, and that is?? a lot closer to the arcade original and kind of? sucks. The entire localized series is ridiculously expensive these days.

Fear not, however. Natsume has a new one coming our way with Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined, which promises to return to the roots of the first (Natsume) title. It looks like a quasi-remaster in the vein of Wild Guns: Reloaded. I couldn’t be more excited. Hopefully, this will also mean a re-release of the original versions, as Wild Guns wound up being dropped on Nintendo Switch Online some time after the remaster. The game is ??too excellent to be entirely lost to obscurity.

For other retro t?itles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Natsume owes me a T-shirt for beating Pocky a??nd Rocky appeared first on Destructoid.

The secret weapon against Nintendo's lawyers

Video games featuring Christian values have been a dream for a long time. Because, after all, what better way to jam God into the hearts of children than by having them do exactly what they do in other games, but with God at their side? For some reason, this never?? caught on. The most popular Christian video games usually just involve blowing up demons with a rocket launcher, but they cleverly skate around the existence of a God or a devil.

The most hilarious example of attempts at Christian games, however, came from Wisdom Tree. Hoo bo?y, what a story that is.

A lot of people regard Nintendo as the saviour of the video game market after the 1983 crash. Truthfully, in a lot of ways, they are. But they achieved this using a lot of anti-competitive and, as it would turn out, actually illegal tactics. If you wanted to produce for the NES, you needed a license, and that came with a lot of restrictions. Some companies, most notably Canadian publisher Camerica, said "screw tha??t". They reverse-engineered the NES lockout chip so they could make third-party games without paying a cent to Nintendo.

Nintendo countered this by telling retailers that if they wanted to sell NES games, they couldn’t sell unofficial cartridges. While Camerica was stomping Nintendo in courts, Color Dreams decided to take another route in selling their u?nlicensed cartridges. They changed their name to "Wisdom Tree" and began pr??oducing exclusively Christian-themed games.

The popular myth is that they did this because they figured Nintendo wouldn’t want to be seen as the heartless company that sued God. That might be part of it, but it's not the entire story. Really, they saw another outlet for their games: Christian book stores. It was genius. Executives and lawyers can’t step onto consecrated ground. Wisdom Tree's games would stand alone in these shops without any competition. Children would have the choice between Bible Adventures and Bible Buffet, and good parents are always willing to open ??their wallets to G??od.

Super 3-D Noah’s Ark was their only release on the SNES, and it was a weird one. It required you to lock-on an official SNES cart to bypass the lockout, but instead of being able to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2, you played as Noah in Wolfenstein 3D. The SNES cart goes?? for somewhere north of $200 these days, and I don’t own it. However, they re-released the game as an enhanced port for the PC, and it’s weirdly well put together.

I mentioned Wolfenstein 3D, since it was made on that engine. There’s another legend in gaming that id Software was so incensed by Nintendo’s censoring of the Wolf 3D SNES port, that they gave Wi??sdom Tree access to the engine,?? just to spite them. Funny, but probably untrue.

Although having Noah kill Nazis in a variety of bunkers would be pretty cool, Super 3-D Noah’s Ark is a total conversion that replaces Nazis with animals and brick walls with wood siding. The story involves the animals on the ark getting rowdy, so Noah has to put them to sleep by firing coconuts at them with slingshots. You’re supposed to be feeding them, but I fe?el a co??conut projectile would be a bit more fatal than that.

The animals, ?in turn, spit at Noah. I mean, the smaller ones kick him, but most just hork at him from down the hall. Guy deserves it, flinging watermelons at goats. Good luck getting the smell of camel s?aliva out of your beard.

There are about 30 levels, and they go by pretty quickly. The music, however, will live on in your brain long after you see the credits roll. I’d describe it as jaunty. Not bad, not good, but definitely the sort of thin?g that digs into y??our ears and lives there for a while.

Wolfenstein 3D isn’t the best platform to teach the virtues of the Bible, so to educate young Christians, a variety of scrolls are littered through the maps in Super 3-D Noah's Ark. They quiz you on Bible stuff, particularly about th??e story of Noah’s Ark. It’s b??een a long time since I’ve been to church and even longer since Bible camp, so I failed most that I encountered.

Aside from that,? you’re just annihilating livestock. There ?are six episodes that are pretty short, each one caps off with a boss battle against, like, a monkey. Unfortunately, none of them wear robot suits.

To be honest, Super 3-D Noah’s Ark isn’t a bad game. Its concept is ludicrous, but it’s basically Wolfenstein 3D. It has all the problems of Wolf 3D, like flat, repetitive levels with nothing but 90-degree corners, but it provides the same dumb shooter gameplay. It’s just that in??stead of Nazis, you’re kill�er, putting animals to sleep.

It's also not as ambitious as games like Blake Stone or Rise of the Triad. Those games shook up the Wolf formula, whereas Super 3-D Noah's Ark is just a holier facsimile.

I played through the whole thing in about six hours, and aside from the music that’s playing on loop in my head, I don’t regret it. It’s like when I played so much of that alternate reality Wolfenstein 3D cabinet in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus that I forgot to actually complete ?the game. Sometimes, you’re just in the mood for 90-degree corners and repetitive textures.

The post Super 3-D Noah’s Ark lets you break animal faces with coconuts appeared first on Destructoid.

The world of the Shadowrun tabletop RPG is th??e best, stupidest, most tantalizing mash-up ever. High fantasy meets cy??berpunk. Elves, mages, and dragons, all mixed amongst political turmoil and megacorporate conspiracies. I get goosebumps just describing it.

It’s just a shame that we haven’t gotten what I’d consider the perfect Shadowrun game. I’ll grant you that the games developed by Hairbrained Schemes are fun on a bun. I love them, but at the same tim?e, I’m not in love with them. They certainly tick a lot of my boxes, bu?t there’s something confining about them.

However, I can always go back to the Shadowrun titles produced around the birth of the tabletop game. Both just titled Shadowrun, there was one on Genesis in 1994 and one on the SNES in 1993. Released about a year apart, these two games were completely and entirely different, but both are worth playing. The Super Nintendo title was th??e one I first played and I hold it a smidge closer to my heart. I first picked it up as a child and was co?mpletely and utterly confused, yet somehow it made an impact. Now, with adult grey matter at my disposal, I can unwind its unfriendly exterior and eat at its nutritious innards. Have a taste!

On th??e Super Nintendo, the game puts you in the shoes of Jake Armitage, a former Shadowrunner who was assassinated (or “geeked�as it might be said in Shadowrun? slang) on the street for some reason. He kicks his way out of his morgue slab with a case of amnesia, and immediately sets to work trying to figure out what the hell happened.

The year is 2050, it’s Seattle, and surprisingly, it isn’t raining. The SNES Shadowrun is pre??tty unique for the system, resembling a CRPG straight down to the mouse pointer interface. You power up your character through experience and equipment, customizing to your liking. Progression requires you to talk to NPCs, and as yo??u do, you collect keywords that you can ask others about.

It’s a good flow, if you can avoid g?etting stuck. Which you can’t.

Getting accustomed to the pointer interface is difficult enough. E??very action requires you to select the cursor, including shooting dudes. Even talking to people makes you switch to the cursor and move it over someone that is standing directly beside you. An action button would be more efficient, but here we are.

Take a look at combat, since it’s done with the cursor too. You have to stand perfectly still while you aim your gun or spell??, then just whack away at the target until enough of the dice rolls land in your favour and the enemy dies. It’s not very lively.

Despite its strange interface, it doesn’t help the game with its translation of its source material. Certainly, there are lots of themes that carry over, but there’s more that’s abandoned than implemented. The narrative is somewhat based off the pulp Shadowrun novel, Never Deal with a Dragon, but without any of the characters, situations, or much of anything else aside from concept. You gain karma instead of XP, you can augment yourself, and there are three categories? to focus on: decking, combat, and magic.

The biggest divergence from the source material is that Jake can profess in everything and augment himself up to the eyeballs which flies in the face of Shadowrun’s mechanics. In the tabletop RPG, you have to specialize. You can’t augment and still use magic, because augmentation takes from your essenc?e, which dictates the efficacy of your magic. Likewise, if you want to be a novaho?t decker, you’re going to be focusing your skills there instead of your fighting abilities.

I get why these changes were made since your party members are useless, but it’s important to no??te ?that it’s not a very direct translation.

I have my misgivings about this particular iteration of Shadowrun to the point where I’m not sure if I ac??tually enjoy playing it. However, I still take it off the shelf with som?e regularity, and I know exactly why.

It’s the atmosphere.

Shadowrun has this amazing ability to capture the feeling of deserted city streets at night. A confusing loneliness, ?a cool break from the summer heat.

Its gritty grey and dirty browns bring out the ugliness of its world. The empty train stations and the noisy clubs. It’s weird to have a 16-bit game able to communicate these feelings (I know, I know; Super Metroid). Some of the best moments are just when you’re running around investigat?ing where to go next. Then you get attacked from a hole in the wall and the combat music? kicks in.

Yeah, the music. It underlines the atmosphere wonderfully. Marshall Parker knew exactly what he was doing, creating a series of amazing tracks. It’s not exactly what I think of when I think cyberpunk music, but it has a style that fits on its own. I will lay my cards down and say that Shadowrun has o?ne of the best soundtracks on the SNES. Top 10. Maybe. Probably.

It’s something I enjoy listening to outside the conte??xt of the game, which isn’t a claim I'd make for many titles??. Every song is wonderful, from energetic to moody. Even if you don’t want to try the game, give the OST a listen.

Shadowrun is not a friendly game. Its puzzles can be slightly obtuse and important objects have a habit of getting hidden in the backgr?ounds. The cursor interface is so poorly thought out, ?and going through a tonne of keywords to find the one a particular NPC will respond to can be a chore.

But there’s nothing like Shadowrun; this weird mix of console and CRPG. It’s a bizarre, unique experience?? with amazing atmosphere and a splendiferous soundtrack. It ma??kes you feel like a cool cyberpunker when you’re not even doing anything that cool. Its plot may not be anything too outstanding, but the pacing is just right �until you get stuck running in circles trying to figure out how to open a door.

It’s not the perfect interpretation of the Shadowrun source material, but instead stumbles drunkenly into its own successes. It’s a game I hold dear to my heart, like a child that doesn’t do well in school but has a good attitude, so I haven’t abandoned it at t?he side of the road. And yeah, I’m listening to the soundtrack ri?ght now, and so should you!

The post Beam Software’s Shadowrun is a hot summer night you can stick in your SNES appeared first on Destructoid.

What mellows you down easy?

Life is stressful, which is a p?hrase I hate saying because it reminds me of all the stressful things in my life. We’re living in crappy times, and many of us are in crappy situations. Thankfully, things are starting to improve for me, but every day is a constant battle. I’m not trying to turn this into a competition, though. You all know how it is.

Given that video games are my hobby of choice, it seems natural that I use them to relax. But not every title is fit for this purpose. For example, I wouldn’t want to play Overcooked with my parents as a way to unwind. I’d probably only use that if I wanted to give myself a reason to be disappointed in them for a change. Likewise, I don’t use games for escapism. Some people can get lost in World of Warcraft for days? a??t a time, but my mind doesn’t work that way. I just need something calming that sets my mind on the right track and slows my heart rate.

So, what games do I use to max an??d relax? That depends on w??hat kind of stress I’m under, but here’s a few examples:

Pilotwings

Nintendo’s early Super Nintendo flight simulator, Pilotwings, may seem like an unusual choice to unwind with. After all, a lot of it revolves around the stressful? task of landing some sort of precarious aircraft on increasingly smaller target?s. However, I’ve found that I’ve returned to it time and time again when things get hectic.

There are a few reasons for this. Part of it is the synthetic saxophone music that drones out of the SNES sound chip. There’s something about the SNES’s buzzy music that just loosens me up. SimCity had the same effect. The flight controls in Pilotwings also have a floaty feel to them, and the Mode 7 background scaling ??conveys a weightless effect. It’s like taking a bath in sour cream.

Oh, but mind the helicopter m?issions that come out of nowhere and are equal parts frightening and frustrating.

The follow-up, Pilotwings 64, was also a pretty good game to ch??ill out to, though it was somewhat undone by its inclusion of missions wherein you fire rockets at a big metal man.

Chulip

If you're familiar with my past articles, you've been warned that I'm not going to shut up about Chulip, my beloved game about ??smooching. It wasn't an empty threat; it's a ver??y special game to me. I've returned to it many times to get lost in its mundane world filled with oddballs, to bank its currency of kisses, and to take tea after midnight in a graveyard.

Chulip has a simple premise: you play as a Japanese schoolboy?? who wants to win the girl of his dreams, but she won’t even give him the time of day unless he demonstrates his rampant promiscuity by kissing everyone in town.

The main goal is actually more stressful than it sounds, because Chulip isn&rsq?uo;t a game that’s afraid to outright kill you for your failures. It’s a dangerous world for puckered lips. You can die from dangerous playground equipment, a blood-thirsty doc?tor, dirty hands, or the embarrassment suffered when you don’t practice proper bathing etiquette. It can be a lot to handle.

So what makes this game so relaxing? That would be its embrace of mundane life. What other game lets you have tea with an uptight komainu statue? Where else can you view short Japanese silent films late at night? Why not ring the bell at an old temple to unleash to horrible curse? Chulip is full of quiet moments like waiting f?or a train or sneaking around a quiet factory after hours.

Of course,? to some, these mundane moments might come across as boring, but to me, it never ceases to tak??e me back to quiet summer evenings.

It also helps that its soundtrack is out of this world.

Densha De Go 64

A rather recent acquisition, Densha De Go 64 is a Japanese train simulator. A port of the second game in the series, it’??s part of a long-running franchise of games that have touched many platforms. Most of them had their own special controller (sold ?separately) that furthered the immersion by offering dedicated throttle and brake controls.

It’s a game that requires an awful lot of skill. You can’t be too fast or too slow or you’ll be punished. You need precise braking techniques to stop at the perfect place at each station. Screw up too frequently, and the cute mascot will be extremely disappointed in you.

However, there are plenty of routes where that only require keeping a consistent schedule and watching out for hazards. There are lots of sections where you just keep an eye on your speed, watch the scenery, and listen to the steady click-click of the tracks. Every once in a while a calm voice tells you that a light is coming up and th??e station announcements are a dull drone in the background.

I mean, then the game pulls the emergency brake on you because you passed the previous two stations three seconds earlier than you were supposed to and you’re deducted 15 seconds from your banked time because it’s a jerk. Whatever, Densha de Go.

Road Trip

I was very tempted to give this spot to a game like Euro Truck Simulator 2 or even American Truck Simulator, mostly because I’ve got a pretty great steering wheel setup for it. And, truthfully, those titles definitely deserve the spot, but I’m going out into left field and gather?ing up a lesser-known game on PS2 for some casual dista??nce driving.

That game is Road Trip, one of the few entries in the ChoroQ series we received in the West. But while most of the series revolves around racing, Road Trip gives you an enormous seamless world to drive around in. Although the main goal is still to win races, you’re also given quests from other cars and can col??lect coins and photographs from spots in the world.

But when you’re not doing that, you’re exploring towns or traveling from one location to the other. There are huge swaths of open road for essentially no reason. The other cars putter around the world harmlessly, the landscape is barren in that special PS2 kind of w?ay, and collectables are pretty sparse outside of towns. It’s just you, the hum of your engine, and the open road. Also, its somewhat bizarre soundtrack that slaps along in the backgr??ound.

Ev?erything about it is stupid, friendly, and cheerful. It’s one of my favorite games to sit down with so I ?can just turn off my brain and watch the scenery go by.

So, when you’re trying to take your mind off of how difficult life is to endure sometimes -- when you’re sprawled out on the couch, buried under blankets, and stocked up on chips -- what do you gravitate towards? Is there a specific title you like to pluck off your shelf, or is there simply a genre that draw??s you in?

The post What games do you relax with? appeared first on Destructoid.

The Classic, SF, and Black versions of the Super Nt will be available again at 8:00 a.m. Pacific alongside the Nt Mini Noir

[Update: The Super Nt consoles are now out of stock, and while the purchase process was unsurprisingly nerve-wracking, I got one. How did it go? Here's a quick recap of what ??went down and what to potentially expect next time.

Right at 8:00 a.m., my cart wouldn't update (a common issue, from what I read), so I had to hammer on the add-to-cart button for about eight minutes. My Super NT Classic finally showed up and I filled in my address, and then I was sent to a queue page that warned me not to refresh. Seven-ish minutes later, I was let in, I filled out my billing info – it would've been faster if I had Apple Pay – and the order was placed. My shipping was $24. I got my confirmation email at 8:17 a.m. and let out a big sigh of relief.

The cart error message sho?wing up the second the clock struck 8:00 a.m. felt like a bad omen that the bots and scalpers had already won again. I'm glad I didn't give up. Assuming Analogue uses a similar setup for future p??roduct drops, consider setting up Apple Pay to expedite the billing process.

I will say, it was nice to be able to secure a sought-after product just using a phone rather than some multi-browser setup on my PC or a sketchy-looking secret URL to beat the crowd.

At the ti??me of writing (9:30 a.m.), the Nt Mini Noir is still in stock.]

[Update 2: If you secured a Super NT order and you're wondering when it will ship, it should go out soon-ish. According to my shipping info on FedEx, my system should show up on April 18.]

Super Nt will be restocked in Classic, SF, and Black.
Available April 9, 2021 at 8am PDT.
Limit 2 per customer. pic.twitter.com/yhYeSjeBfW

— Analogue (@analogue) April 8, 2021

I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and try to grab a Super Nt – but I'm not holding my breath. My lucky streak for successfully placing online orders for sought-after consoles is bound to run out soon. If you're up for it, the Super Nt will be available again tomorrow, April 9, starting at 8??:00 a.m. Pacific.

The transparent design has been discontinu?ed, but the other three mod??els – Classic, SF (Super Famicom), and Black – will pop up in the online shop. The console costs $189.99 (plus shipping), and Analogue is limiting two per customer, a move that has spread anxiety about scalpers swooping in.

According to a heads-up newsletter I got today, "all orders will ship by the end of the week." As for 8BitDo's matching SN30 - Classic and SN30 - SF controllers, they're currently still out of stock.

If you're reading this, you're likely familiar – maybe a little too familiar – with the Super Nt. If not, it's a well-crafted FPGA system designed for folks who want to get the most out of their Super Nintendo and Super Famicom cartridges in 2021. I'll kindly direct you to My Life in Gaming's extensive video review.

With the recent Pocket postponement news, we learned that Analogue was planning to restock a few of its products soon. Apart from the Super Nt, the "very last" Nt Mini Noir units will be available on Analogue's shop at 8:00 ??a.m. Pacific on April 9, with a limit of one per customer. It's a $499.99 beast.

"Shortly after" that mad dash, the company will also restock the Mega Sg and DAC.

On the one hand, I'm kind of relieved these systems aren't readily available – I'd feel like a kid in a candy store that was accidentally given a twenty. On the other hand, I want to play my SNES carts on a modern TV without jumping through a bunch of hoops. After a recent splurge, I am so so ready.

I'm sending you all of my best "online shopping in the Covid era" vibes. Godspeed??.

The post (Update) Analogue is restocking the Super Nt and Nt Mini Noir tomorrow and, well,?? good luck! appeared first on Destructoid.

Some 'rough scribbles' from the old days at Rare

Aside from my normal rotation of gaming-adjacent YouTu?be subs that I keep tabs on a few tim??es a week, lately, my feed has been full of anything but modern video games – hardware mods, console restorations, little-known tidbits about my favorite series, wacky lists, and everything in between.

It's entirely on-brand that I'd come across a video from former Rare artist Kev Bayliss covering his original Donkey Kong Country sketches – includin??g the iconic Animal Buddies – from 1993.

These are some of the "original scribbles which were used as a basis for us to model our 3D graphics for Donkey Kong Country," he said. "There's not a lot here, really – it's just a lot of scribbles – and as I say, they're very crude, but it was all we needed back in the day? before we?? began modeling our characters."

"We just needed a couple of sketches so that we could refer to them and say 'Yeah, we want a frog,??' and then we'd probably consult our natural history books or wh?atever we had on our desks way before the internet, and we'd look at all the finer details."

"If you were to pres??ent this as concept art nowadays people would j?ust laugh at you," Bayliss added.

I particularly love the scratched-out names that weren't used (Rambi the Rhino is presented here as "Rhidocerus") and the "meaner," more Battletoads-esque varia??tions that were considered. He also showed off a "Slippas" snake enemy that could stun the Kongs and an early lo??ok at the Kremlings.

As for DK himself, Bayliss said that the chara?cter's proportions were meant to "work better as a platformer rather than a villain at the top of the screen," hence the more "boxy" and "compact" redesign.

It's fascinating to see the original fax that "came over from Nintendo" co??mpared to Bayliss' sketches?.

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We could all use a little Aquatic Ambiance

You'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise on most days, but Super Nintendo and NES games are still trickling into the Nintendo Switch Online library. On July 15, 2020, Nintendo is adding three more games to the paid service: Donkey Kong Country, Natsume Championship Wrestling, and The Immortal.

As one of the most frequently-requested games, Donkey Kong Country needs no real introduction. It's not the best in the series – we can bicker over DKC2 and DKC3 all day long (they're both essential platformers in my eyes) – but the original DKC is still a staple of the Super Nintendo library.

I'll need to defer to Moyse for Natsume Championship Wrestling, and as for the NES title The Immortal, it only rings a bell for me because of a super elaborate Angry Video Game Nerd episode from last year.

Can Nintendo hear our PSI-pow??ered pleas? We must not be getting through.

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What a brilliant idea

It never dawned on me how well the characters, world, and tone of Zombies Ate My Neighbors could work within the confines of Doom. Thankfully, a modder named Dude27th put two and two together.

The water gun, soda cans, bazooka, and babies – it all just fundamentally ??works!

This Doom II total-conversion project isn't finished &ndash??; in fact, the last update was pushed in July 2019 – but the footage captured by YouTube user Smokeanaut warms my horror-loving heart all the same.

Thi?s game may never come back in style in? an official capacity, but fans will never let it die.

[Via Nintendo Enthusiast]

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There's gotta be a better way!

[Update: The SNES Switch controllers are back in stock in North America this morning. Good luck!]

In an ideal world, everyone who wanted a Super Nintendo controller for Switch would be able to buy one, and ??we'd have access to hundreds?? of SNES games with our Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions.

In reality, the SNES-style Switch gamepads have been hard to pin down even for tuned-in fans. If you missed the initial batch, it's been a frustrating exercise full of speculation and false-starts. And as for the games, Nintendo continues to take its time adding more SNES titles to the Switch?? Online library.

Things ??aren't going great, in other words, but there's a bi??t of hope.

While the Super Nintendo controllers are still out of stock, here's the latest update as of January 30, 2020: "This item i??s currently unavailable. Please check back for more news in February 2020."

I think peopl?e would be a lot more patient if they knew they stood a real chance of getting their ??????????????????????????order placed next time around. For now, though, a vague "come back soon" window is all we can rely on.

If you're open to other options, there's always 8bitdo's SN30 Pro and SN30 Pro+.

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This Bingo card is out of control

Nintendo sure has its own way of running the Nintendo Switch Online classic game library. A new batch with four games – tw??o on NES, two on SNES – is joining the service on February 19, 2020.

On the Super Nintendo front, subscribers are getting Pop'n TwinBee, a cutesy vertical shoot-'em-up, and Smash Tennis, neither of which were originally released in the United States. For NES fans, there's the action-platformer Shadow of the Ninja and the powerboat racing game Eliminator Boat Duel.

"These titles broaden the diversity of fun games available with a Nintendo Switch Online membership," Nintend??o said in a press release today. The statement is ??as true as it is frustrating.

I'm legitimately excited about Pop'n TwinBee, but that's it. Thi??s release schedule is something el??se.

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We're using the GOOD potatoes

SuperMash looked like one of the standouts during Nintendo's recent Indie World Showcase, a genre-defying retro throwba??ck to early Nintendo titles which seemed perfect for the Switch.

Surprisingly, the game had?? already launched one day before the presentation on the PC, where it's an Epic Games Store exclusi??ve. While it won't be ready for home consoles for a few months, the PC version should give us a pretty good idea of what to expect when it arrives.

So how does SuperMash play?

SuperMash (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Digital Continue
Publisher: Digital Continue
Released: December 9, 2019 (PC), May 2020 (Consoles)
MSRP: $24.99

SuperMash is a love letter to Nintendo games of the late '80s and early '90s, a period when developers were still experimenting with what could be accomplished on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game's pre??mise is that you work in a modern game store which sells retro titles, and find an unusual console at a garage sale, one with slots for two cartridges. This heavily modified "Playtype" console came with a stack of homebrew games, as well as a journal left behind by the person who was working on them. 

Six genres are represented (with more on the way as DLC, according to the developer), and players are encouraged to mix and match them to create different blends of games, which the characters in the store call "Mashes." It's a good thing you found this machine, because your store has lost its lease and you'll need to sell a lot of these custom games to keep it running. This story is told in a visual novel style, but it's pretty much ju??st a wraparound for the real meat of the game: the mashups.

Each of the genres borrows heavily from a classic NES title, though the visuals are usually ?more representative of what the Super Nintendo could handle.

The "Action-Adventure" cartridge is basically a Legend of Zelda clone, the "Platformer" cart resembles the Super Mario series, "Stealth" copies Metal Gear, "JRPG" takes inspiration from Final Fantasy, "Metrovania" unsurprisingly borrows from Metroid and latter-day Castlevania titles, and "Shoot-em-up" seems to be inspired by Galaga and Capcom's 1942. Each genre can be crossed with one other, or you can slot tw?o of the same cart??ridges in to get a purer game experience.

Each of the genres has its own story ??and characters, which can be explored through the journal. Collecting certain key items from one or another of the genres will unlock entries in the journal, which is how you progress the plot in the visual novel "real world" scenes. Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee your goal for a level will include one of these key items, so it's a bit random how many mashes you'll have to play before you can get to the next plot hook. Completing a journal page will let you take on the boss fight for a given genre, using a specific character and skill set tailored to the boss.

O?ne other detail worth mentioning is the idea of "Dev cards," which are earned for every successful mash completion. They can also be earned using in-game currency or by completing sidequ??ests in the visual novel portion of the game.

Dev cards give you a degree of agency by letting you control "glitches"?? in the mashes. These are beneficial or detrimental modifiers which can make a given mash easier or harder, and there's usually at least one of each active based on the difficulty settings you've chosen for your mash. There's no? way to turn these glitches off, so being able to control which ones you see helps quite a bit. Dev cards also allow you to select a specific protagonist, weapon, background, and/or music for your next mash.

A lot of SuperMash's charm and how well it works on you is going to depend on how much nostalgia you have for the time period it's trying to represent. Each mash you create has its own title screen and introductory cutscene, and these can be pretty entertaining in and of themselves. Who wouldn't want to play through Dude-Bro Odyssey or High Roller Ninja? 

The interactions between various genres can be pretty interesting. Blending a JRPG with a shoot-em-up gave me a game where I could only fire at the alien bugs coming from the top of the screen once my Active Time Battle gauge had filled up, which was far more tactical than I'd have expected. It's not the same every time, either; trying the same combination later on gave me a role-playing game where a military fighter plane served as the protagonist, or a dungeon crawler where random encounters took place as sky battles over a nameless desert. When I tried making a Stealth RPG, I found it amusing as hell to see SuperMash's Solid Snake stand-in giving a snappy salute to a knockoff of the Final Fantasy fanfare after a battle. 

Unfortunately, moments like this are few and far between. Everything in SuperMash is procedurally generated, and this can lead to some impossible scenarios if an enemy ends up in exactly the wrong position, or if a glitch cuts off access to a key item. The platforming physics cause you to fall straight down if you take a hit midair, so some mashes become incredibly frustrating for no good reason. You?? can also end up in a scenario where enemies gain health every time you input an action, so shoot-em-up enemies end up gaining health faster than ??you can blast it away.

The main problem is very few of the games you'll end up creating using the mash system are worth playing more than once. None of the mashes end up being anywhere near as good as the titles they take inspiration from. It's an impressive technical achievement, to be sure. But I'd much rather play a handcrafted level from a game like Shovel Knight than a hundred algorithmically generated levels in SuperMash. I'd be much more interested if this engine were used to create a Mario Maker-style tool which allows for precise platform and enemy plac?ement, instead of the computer?-generated levels you end up playing through.

I didn't find the visual novel's story especially compelling, and the ephemeral nature of the mash?es means there's not really any in-game progression to work toward. You may pick up a few power-ups on your way through a mash, but they'll be gone when you start the next one.

I also ran into a few situat?ions where the game I mashed up crashed on me, though these were explained away in-game by the rickety nature of the modded console. It only seemed to happen when I blended the Stealth and Shoot-em-up genres, which don't go together especially well anyway. 

Unfortunately, SuperMash is a game where the concept is better than the execution. While the spritework and chiptunes are nice, the gameplay holds the whole thing back; a big problem when the gameplay is supposed to be the main feature. Ironical??ly, the mashed-up game??s usually end up being less than the sum of their parts.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game? provided by the publisher.]}

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Thirty(ish) bucks well spent

I skipped the NES gamepads, but those new SNES controllers for Nintendo S??witch? I couldn't resist!

If you were lucky enough to place an order in time (not only are quantities limited, but you also need to be a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber to even buy on?e), you might want to keep an eye out. My SNES controller showed up this afternoon, and I'm seeing other people start to share their impressions as well. It's unclear when they'll be in stock again, but for ??now, how does the device feel in-person?

In a word: fantastic??. Just like I remember. I don't regret my impulse buy.

As expected, the d-pad is the crown jewel of the controller �/span> so much so, I'm planning on busting this out for anything and everything I can on Switch, not just the still-fairly-limited SNES game library. Next order of business: Collection of Mana, which I on??ly just cracked ?into the other week. It's slow-going.

The rest of the controller feels spot-on, too. The start and select buttons have the right amount of squishiness. The shoulder buttons aren't stiff �/span> a problem I've faced with second-hand Super Nintendo gamepads in the past �/span> and the A/B/X/??Y buttons are as comfortable and natu??ral-feeling as ever.

Basically, everything works as antic?ipated,? with one big caveat: there's no home button.

When you're inside the Nintendo Switch Online SNES app, you can hit ZR, and that'll take you to your Switch home screen, no problem. But otherwise, if you're playing another game (I tried Blasphemous), yo??u'll need to go home with either a different controller or the Switch itself?? if you're in handheld mode.

Speaking of the ZL and ZR buttons, they're about as tiny as they can be, but they're functional. In the SNES app, you can press them together to quickly create a save state and, given their placement, you're never going to accidentally hit them. That's nice. I also appreciate that the app uses alternate menu-navigation sound effects inspired by Super Mario World when an SNES controller is connected.

Really, it comes down to your own preferences.

I know plenty of you are super happy with your 8BitDo controllers, and that's something everyone should consider before buying a Switch Online SNES pad. If you're a die-hard Super Nintendo fan, though... it's tough. The nostalgia factor and build qualit??y make this surprisingly hard to ignore.

Even if Nintendo somehow never added any more SNES games, I'd still be okay with this purchase. Just make sure you don't get one expecting to play analog-stick-only games like Zelda: Link's Awakening.

_{[This impressions piece is based on retail hardware purchased by the author.]}

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