This weeks features look back at the days of the DOS game.
No mouse, and only armed with your keyboard, you had more control over your environments. Text adventures gave little to no instruction to navigate, leaving it up to you to figure out where to go. With small and expensive hard drives, reliance on floppy disks was important. Interplay's 10 Year Anthology is a compilation of a number of these types of games, and is a good sample of what to expect of games from this era. The high difficulty of some of these games can be frustrating at times, but looking back at them allows you to appreciate the advances that have been made in Western RPGs and adventure storytelling.
The Amiga CD32 is the featured hardware for the week. It is known as the first 32-bit CD-Rom based console released in western countries. With the ability to add a mouse, keyboard, and floppy drive, the Amiga CD32 feels more similar to a personal computer than console. Unfortunately, it didn't last long as Commodore filed for bankruptcy nearly a year after release.
The featured collection for the week belongs to TheBoss. He has several sharp pictures of his PC and Amiga CD collections; which are certainly not the easiest to collect for.
The featured image for the week is from the fantasy adventure game, Loom. Back in the day Lucasfilm's game studio (later to become LucasArts) actually made some memorable adventure games. Loom is noteable as the world's first fully voiced adventure game, and a decent copies have been known to fetch a pretty penny in online auctions.
[img width=250 align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/125525993946e8d52450f76Xbox-mini.jpg[/img]In 2001, Microsoft took their first steps into console video gaming with the Xbox. Often criticized as being a PC in a box, the hardware's most noticeable feature is its large size and weight in comparison to consoles from previous generations.
In 2007, two years after Microsoft's cessation of Xbox production, a fellow named ghostravel took it into his own hands to remedy the size issue. A year of toil, and some specialty craftsmanship (laser-cut custom case, reworked power supply, etc.) have earned him impressiveresults.
Good evening ladies and gents and welcome to the weekly birding feature, last weeks travels overseas brought a lot of a lot of sightings including the Japanese Grosbeak. This particular finch is quite common in the region and a casual sit near any feeder should score you an easy sighting. Also called the Ikaruga by the locals, its black and white feathering inspired a team of four video game designers to name one of their games after it. I believe they're called Treasure and have made some solid hits before, but this one stands out with a new element of gameplay, the ability to change from black to white.
Well, enough of that games rubbish... now where were we. Right, now for this portion of this week's show we get an outside opinion on waterfowl, courtesy of fellow sportsman, Earl. It looks like we're going on a Duck Hunt!
Well good evening there, Earl. What are we tracking tonight? Ducks. Ain't it obvious? Say, wanna Bud? No, thank you. So, would you be kind enough to tell us about your firearm. dun' mind if I do. Now this 'ere is the N-E-S-oh-oh-five, or I like to call it the Zapper. My buddy, TH14Arsenal has got one too.
So, please do tell our viewers what techniques you use to find and make the kill on these particular waterfowl. Well, its pretty easy. You see my dog here, Caesar. He does it all for me. Now, this Zapper came with a robot, and some "ness" toy all my kids be playin with, but that robot did nothin' but spin tops and stack rings, so I'm stickin' with who I trust the most to git-er-done. ...Right, so you just sit back while the dog seeks the fowl, flushes them, and you just sit back and do... nothing. It sounds quite simple, really. grrr...
Calm down, he only gets ornery with strangers. Lets shoot some duckies to cheer him up.
woof woof woof
KA-PANG! KA-PANG!
Wow, nice shot. You got two of them. Nah, its easy. You try. If you insist.
woof woof woof
KA-PANG! KA-PANG! KA-PANG!
Three misses. That sucks man, your aims worse than all five of my sisters' grrr... Caesar don't like it when you miss the ducks.
grrr...
You better run, squirrel
Well, glad to have you all again this week. *gasp* And remember always tune in to Channel thr-DAAAAH
The sequel to last year's Wii launch title is once more drawing an all-out media blitz. To be honest, I enjoyed the ads as much as I did the game last time around, and things are looking promising again this time around.
This time he's crafted a reasonably small combo portable that plays NES and Atari cartridges. He managed to do this using his preferred NES on a Chip and bits from an Atari Flashback II. Yes it does play both Asteroids and Super Mario Bros. 3, and changes over at the flick of a switch.
Features this week are mixing things up a bit. One of the big "next-gen" selling points for the Wii and PS3 are the use of motion controls as a new means of playing games in relation to mashing buttons and twiddling your analogs. First off is a handheld game with a built-in tilt controller. That game, my good friend, is Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble. Tilt forward, and it feels like Kirby will roll off screen, and a little flick will pop him into the air. This game earned me a lot of funny looks the first time I was seen wiggling my Game Boy Color around.
Shakin' it up is the featured hardware, the highly sought-after Dreamcast Maracas. These babies were never bundled and fetched a high price in stores; yet, they worked with only one game! (Well, maybe a few minor exceptions, but they are poorly applied.) Lets just say that they didn't sell too well and have become a wee bit difficult to find. Speaking of that one game...
The featured image for the week is the cover shot for Samba de Amigo. Why the Japanese version? It captures the spirit of the game. Anyways, playing it for the first time might remind you of your first forray into DDR, club-footed and uncoordinated. Never fear, for an easy learning curve will make you a cha-cha master in no time. Available in all three major regions, this game is for every culture. Getting some of my Columbian friends into it was definitely a rewarding experience that everyone seemed to enjoy.
Oh boy, that commercial gets me excited every time.
The featured collection of the week is someone with even more funky rhythm controllers. Sauza12 has a lovely standee for Donkey Konga in addition to all three GameCube games that make use of the Bongo controllers. In addition to that he also has some interesting items including two arcade cabinets worth checking out.
E3 2007 has come and gone, and this year was certainly different. One thing that got me was the lack of laser weapons being used to blast other-worldly beings into green bits. Aren't aliens, zombies, and ninjas the stock villains of video gaming? Either way, we can supplement your yearning for malicious contact.
The game of the week is Alien Syndrome. Ricky and Mary run and gun their way to rescue their comrades from aliens. Formerly a Tengen cart, Sega is about to release a sequel of sorts under the same title for Wii and PSP in these coming weeks.
The featured image of the week is the cover art for Alien Hominid. This game started out as a freebie flash game and has since been ported to most home consoles and is currently on the move to download services. Alien Hominid is colourful and fascinating as it is entirely hand drawn. Also, the flash version is available for free play in RF Generation's own online arcade! You can't beat free.
Now for a name that could only come from science fiction, the Amstrad GX4000. Its appearance and name look like they could fly you to Mars, or at least to the nearest filling station. This rarely seen 8-bit console took a swift beating as the Mega Drive launched less than a year later with a 16-bit colour pallet.
When missile defense fails to break the UFO shields, there's only enough time for one thing. Thats right, admire James' collection, this weeks feature. Neatly displayed rows of Mega Drive and SMS boxes with one rare and outstanding shooter proudly displayed in the center. If you're curious as to what the title is, you must see for yourself. Suspenseful.