In this episode, the boys let their freak flags fly as Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) are joined by their friend and host of the Retro Fandango podcast, Kevin (BuriedOnMars). It's another month of murderous mayhem as the guys stalk the streets of Steelport to reclaim the city they call home in Volition's wacky, open-world crime shooter, Saints Row: The Third. The guys discuss the their favorite gameplay elements and how they chose to approach this title. This month, there's a tremendous concert cast as the guys discuss their recently fallen rock heroes and their favorite albums of 1995. You will not want to miss this high eclectic selection of albums and you'll certainly want to know which of the boys has never heard of the Wu Tang Clan.....we can't make this up kids. Join us for this hardy and laughter-filled episode of the Playcast.
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on these games on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the games more. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes and/or Podbean to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen, we hope you enjoy the show!
In this episode, the boys let their freak flags fly as Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) are joined by their friend and host of the Retro Fandango podcast, Kevin (BuriedOnMars). It's another month of murderous mayhem as the guys stalk the streets of Steelport to reclaim the city they call home in Volition's wacky, open-world crime shooter, Saints Row: The Third. The guys discuss the their favorite gameplay elements and how they chose to approach this title. This month, there's a tremendous ConcertCast as the guys discuss their recently fallen rock heroes and their favorite albums of 1995. You will not want to miss this high eclectic selection of albums and you'll certainly want to know which of the boys has never heard of the Wu Tang Clan.....we can't make this up kids. Join us for this hardy and laughter-filled episode of the Playcast.
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on these games on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss the games more. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes and/or Podbean to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen, we hope you enjoy the show!
For many gamers, October is the time to pull out ghoulish and spooky horror titles to drum up scares appropriate for the Halloween season. As a cohost of the community playthroughs on this site, I tend to get my annual fill of October creepiness with our traditionally horror-themed games during this month every year since our inception. This year however, I decided to try to pack in a few more horror themed titles in my free time to get into the spirit. Of the handful of horror games I played this month, one was a huge disappointment and another was a complete revelation.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
With the year rapidly closing in on us we need all the help we can get! The list of remaining games may be smaller than ever, but boy is it dense. We need all sports stars, adventurers, action heroes, pilots, drivers, puzzle masters, strategic geniuses, arcade wizards and cartoon characters on hand to beat the remainder of the NES library.
Check out the list of remaining titles or even just pop in the thread to share tips or encourage our players to keep on going. With everybody banding together we can accomplish this lofty goal!
[img width=616 height=353]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/MessengerHeader.png[/img] image from wikipedia
I'm stuck on a boss in The Messenger. This little bit of information is unlikely to sway any political elections, and on my own scale of importance from one to five it gets a solid "meh" and a shrug.
What this irreverent trivia represents, however, is a mite bit deeper.
Posted on Oct 12th 2019 at 12:00:00 PM by (Pam) Posted under video, review, nes
The Three Stooges is a show I used to watch with my Dad when I was a kid. I remember it ran on Sunday mornings on a local channel called The New VR. I always got a chuckle out of the pratfalls and low-brow comedy. What happens when you try to bring a comedy show to the NES? Is it still funny? Can a proper game be made out of it? Watch to find out.
Welcome to a new episode of Dramatic Readings! This time around, I take a look at a later entry in the life of the gray brick, a Disney licensed title. Not by Capcom, and surprisingly, not by Virgin Interactive...at least not directly. This game comes to use via Tiertex, and its level of quality is suspect. I'll leave the rest to your imagination, however. You'll need to watch the video, to get my full take on the game. Let me know what you think in the comments - did you enjoy this game? What other licensed games do you enjoy? Let's discuss!
I am one of the founding partners of RetroWorld Expo. I sold my interest in the event back to two very good friends last year and they brought in another very good friend to move forward with the show. This was the first year that I attended RWX as an attendee and not as an owner/showrunner.
My five year old son Callahan attended RWX last year. My wife brought him and he had a fantastic time playing in the console freeplay and arcade areas. I was able to break away from my expo duties to hang with the fam for a little while.
Good times had by all but because of my duties, I was not able to spend a ton of time just playing games last year. Now that I am free to attend without worrying about work, though...
2019:
The first day of RWX was the same day as my wife's baby shower (boy #3 on the way this month!) so I had to drop my younger son off with Grandpa before hitting the road. We got packed up and left around 10:30AM. The casual pace that we enjoyed the morning compared to the frantic pace of years past reminded me of when I used to work retail. Black Friday was a beast of a weekend to work but then years later it was a nice casual shopping trip. I felt very fortunate to be able to enjoy the time leading up to RWX instead of stressing about it.
Once we were in the car, I asked for music requests and Callahan picked Pneuma, his favorite song from the new Tool album, and then he wanted to hear Moth into Flame and the rest of the car ride was a mix of everything in between. Once we got there and grabbed out wristbands, the first thing we saw was a familiar car that belonged to a familiar face. Also, yes, Callahan wanted to wear the same shirt as last year.
We snapped a pic a little later in the day of the owner of that car, he is masked in the pic below but it's our great buddy Russ Lyman! Big fan of Russ' cosplay as the main bad guy from A Nightmare on Halloween Street: Freddy VoorMeyers
But there is only so much shopping and walking around that a young boy can put up with when there is a large freeplay arcade close by. The first game we played was one that I played a TON as a kid.
Nearby in the same aisle was a Super Nintendo with Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Callahan told me he played this game on the SNES classic with Grandpa in Florida.
Since he has such a good time on the small screen, I asked him if he wanted to play the BIG version. Once he figured out how to bite me, that's all he wanted to do. "I'm biting your head, I'm biting your head!"
We also sat down to play Sunset Riders but this didn't last too long. It was way too tough for my little guy, he handed me the controller and watched me play the first level.
One of the big surprises of the day was Pac Man Vs. They had a setup with a GBA and a link cable so one player controls pac man on the GBA and the other player controls the ghosts on the tv screen. This was a blast.
There were a ton of arcade games that I would like to have played but I let Callahan pick whatever he wanted and we spent most of our time with Super Mario Bros, Dr Mario (PC-10), and Pac Man.
And what video game expo would be complete without sitting down for an extended play session of a game that we can play at home whenever we want. This kid is really getting into Minecraft. Its actually great setting up a weekly "Minecraft Time" at home where we will sit down in creative mode and play together as long as he has completed his chore/behavior chart. We're looking forward to Minecraft Earth later this month.
I ran into our very own Izret and got a chance to chat with him and his son. No pictures because I wasn't thinking but it was great to see him and catch up a bit. I'm kind of bummed that I didn't run into Pam or Will. I was planning to go to Pam's panel but it was on Sunday and couldn't make it both days. Catch you at the next one, guys!
And that about wraps it up. After we gamed as much as we could, we walked across the street to Bear BBQ. I've eaten at this place a few times during RWX before and I feel like I go there more out of tradition than for love of their food. As always, the food was just OK. Also the Counterweight Headway IPA had just kicked so I had to settle for a session IPA
In closing I will leave you with a funny little video of Callahan singing a song from Super Mario World opera style when he realized how great the reverb was in the empty area of the parking garage we were in.
As the Switch nears its 3-year anniversary, it's been interesting to watch the role it's embraced. Not just a home/portable hybrid gaming machine, its trajectory has more than a bit in common with the ill-fated Vita. Sony's Ferrari-of-a-portable turned into a fantastic way to play PSN and PS1 games on the go, and in a similar fashion, Nintendo's latest is giving new life to all the great Wii U games no one played, as well as hosting ports of a lot of mainstream games that usually wouldn't come Nintendo's way. This is no doubt due to its successful sales numbers, and given their recent buddying up with Xbox, it seems Nintendo has been courting 3rd party publishers pretty hard. There's been quite a few games I've bought on the Switch that I already own on other platforms, simply because the idea of playing them on the go is such an intriguing prospect (e.g. Diablo III, Doom 2016, etc.). One of the best examples of this role of giving overlooked titles another chance is the recent announcement that Doom 64 would be coming to the Switch.
At first glance there really isn't much that I should like about Yo-kai Watch: I am not a fan of anime in general, I am not a huge fan of the Pokemon craze, and I am certainly not at the age to which this games humor is targeted. Nonetheless, I was pulled into Yo-kai Watch hard, and it has everything to do with the setting.
When it was brought to my attention that September 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Sega Dreamcast in North America, I felt compelled to actually play something on Sega's short-lived final console, which is something I rarely do. Since the Dreamcast has a handful of exclusive survival-horror titles that have never been ported or re-released on other consoles, it only seemed fitting that I would check out one of these titles and see how it holds up. Being a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, I decided to go with an unabashed Resident Evil knockoff known as Carrier.
Carrier is a Sega Dreamcast exclusive survival-horror title that was developed and published by Jaleco. Released in North America, Japan, and Europe on January 31, 2000, February 24, 2000, and July 5, 2001 respectively, it was met with mostly mixed criticism. A sequel was planned to be released for the PlayStation 2 but was ultimately canceled. Carrier has since faded into relative obscurity as it was likely overshadowed by the much more popular Resident Evil CODE: Veronica which released only a month later in North America.
The Playstation 2 is an absolute monster for horror games and all kinds of variations on the genre's central themes. On top of the popular action format of survival horror, there are plenty of horror-based role playing games for the console. Shadow Hearts is one such RPG, as it melds traditional and Lovecraftian horror designs and themes in an alternate timeline setting of Earth in 1913 and 1914. And it has a rather unique, turn-based combat system. The game released in 2001, making it one of the earliest RPGs for the Playstation 2. The game was developed by Sacnoth and published by Aruze in Japan, and Midway Games in North America and Europe.
Back in March, I had been looking to add a modern console racer to my collection. Stopped at a local game store, where the clerk recommended that I watch for the console release of Wreckfest, a demolition derby racer by THQ Nordic that had already been released on Steam. Intrigued, I anticipated its release, and immediately picked up a copy when it came out last month, and it's been money well spent.
From first glance, and a name like wreckfest, you'd think that this was purely an arcade racer. Just hit-the-gas and run-into-stuff type of action. But the reality is that it plays almost like a hybrid, crossing the lines between what to expect from a sim racer, and what to expect from an arcade racer. It really does feel like a simulation of driving a derby car, complete with physics and one of the best damage engines I've ever seen in a game. But then putting that realistic feel into unrealistic, and sometimes absurd, situations.
In terms of presentation, the game hits all the notes you'd want it to. While it doesn't have the photorealism of games like Gran Turismo and Forza, the game is gorgeous in its own right, with environments that complement the gritty feel the game is aiming for. Many environmental objects are fully interactive as well, meaning you can plow through billboards, bend guardrails, and explode tire barriers at your delight.
This game is NOT about speed or sleek driving machines. It's about willing your rustbucket car around the track while forcing your will on your opponents, all the while keeping them from doing the same to you. That's the essence of this game, and in that respect, it comes down to driving skill, with the occassional bit of luck mixed in.
Some tracks are more circuit loops that resemble a traditional racing experience, while others are figure eights in which you have to cross through traffic, and still others in which the track is literally one-lane with turn-around sections at each end, and you find yourself navigating constant head on traffic as the race progresses. There are also Last Man Standing stadium challenges in which 24 vehicles are placed in an arena with the goal of trying to wreck all other vehicles while keeping yours running. After all, it is a demolition derby game.
This variety of course and race types keeps the game fresh, and adds to its replay value. While the selection of vehicles isn't massive, it is enough that players can find cars that best suit their skills. Another welcome aspect is the ability to customize tuning on the car as well try some wicked paint scheme combinations.
On the track, while the AI is aggresive and there is slight rubber-banding when cars get behind, it never feels unfair or out of place. One positive note I noticed early on was that it never felt like a 1 vs all game. Each race feels like a free-for-all, with computer opponents trying to take out each other as well as the human player. I can't think of a title that does a better job of this racing aspect, and it's just one of many instances I was impressed by Wreckfest's game engine.
The game isn't perfect, however. While I know it's a thing of the past, this game would've lent itself well to local multiplayer, but only an online multiplayer is available. Get ready to sit through some long load times, sometimes from 30 to 60 seconds for a race.
Also, it's not the kind of game where you can just hit the gas and steer. There is constant braking and strategy involved, and while its driving mechanics are executed well, there is a learning curve to mastering the controls, and this may turn off some casual players looking for a quick pick-up-and-play option.
Nevertheless, this game does so many things well that any gamer who enjoys good racing action will find something they enjoy. It's all about driving, be it surviving mayhem or sideswiping opponents to help you cut corners tighter. It's crazy racing situations only add to its continuous adrenaline pumping excitement. It's a modern classic that always lives up to its name.
With Episode 015, MetalFRO and Addicted dig into the first TurboGrafx game for the RF Generation Shmup Club, the early release, Blazing Lazers! This game has elements from other shooters you may recognize, because it was jointly developed by Hudson Soft and Compile, and their other games and influences definitely shine through. Does the game hold up today? We dicsuss that, and more!
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
