If Dragon Quest is your thing, the announcement of the ports of Dragon Quest VII and VIII to Nintendo's 3DS handheld have to be very exciting. They were for me, but for different reasons. For part VIII it is a curiosity, since coming from the more powerful PS2, some sort of compromise or trickery was surely needed to squeeze it on a humble 3DS cartridge. However, for part VII, it was to be a large, graphical upgrade from the PSX original, whose blocky and pixelated look caused it to sell so abysmially outside of it's native Japan, according to many publications. Could a remake, based almost entirely on graphical fidelity, fare any differently outside of it's native country (where it is one of the best selling games of all time)?
So as mentioned by myself and others, 2016 has been a tough year. But you know what? (And if you do, why are you wasting your psychic talents on a blog instead of using your superhero powers for the good of mankind?) 2016 has also been a good year. In fact, as I look around, I get dizzy. But I also see how my gaming life in the here and now, when taken as a whole, is very much a fantastical realization of so many childhood dreams.
Wow... 2016 is coming to an end. Already! Maybe I'm getting old, but it felt like one of those years that just flew by. And what a crazy year it was for gaming. As a pretty much exclusively PC gamer, I saw some really wild developments this year. I guess the biggest one would be the real deal retail release of virtual reality as a thing that is now kind of, but not totally, normal for people to have in their homes. Indeed, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive along with PlayStation 4's PSVR and Samsung's GearVR are all making VR gaming a more normal reality. This year also saw Nvidia and AMD both put out super beefy and super cheap graphic card lines - most likely to help usher in the "VR revolution." Additionally, this year saw a shift in the way console makers seemed to view PC gaming. Microsoft seems to be pushing towards a shared ecosystem for Xbox One and Windows 10, while Sony has launched the PlayStation Now streaming service for Windows that allows PC gamers to play PS3 games. Even Nintendo... well, I mean Nintendo saw a hit with Pokemon Go and is bringing a Mario game to iOS and Android. So that's something.
Anyway, enough rambling I suppose. Within all that craziness I also played a lot of games this year. So let's take a look at the ones that really stuck with me. There's some surprises here, and some totally obvious ones. But these are the ones I honestly played and enjoyed the most. So here we go!
Welcome the December edition of RF Generation's Site News! In this issue, we announce January's community playthrough title, set a reminder for members participating in this year's site Secret Santa, and thank those members who sent in submissions to our site and registered approvals during the month of November. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Site News and from all the staff at RF Generation, please have a safe and happy holiday season!
REMEMBER: If you have any news about upcoming events or topics that you think the site needs to hear about, please PM singlebanana and put "RFG Site News" in the subject line. Who knows, maybe your news will make our front page! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join RF Generation Playcast hosts, Rich (singlebanana), Shawn (GrayGhost81), and Floyd (Fleach) as they discuss the November playthrough, Heavy Rain. In this special 100th game episode, we delve into this Quantic Dream QTC classic and discuss the various storylines, gameplay mechanics, and the cast of characters. During September of last year, we played Indigo Prophecy, and here we take some time to compare the two games, which were developed by the same company. Indigo Prophecy was Rich's most disappointing of pick for 2015, so how will Heavy Rain fair with our Playcast newcomer? Listen to this episode of the RF Generation Playcast and find out!
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on this games on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss these games more. We hope you enjoy our show. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen!
Today I'm looking at one of gaming's lesser known mascots - Bonk! I review the original Bonk's Adventure on the TurboGrafx-16, as well as look at a bit of his history and the history of the console to explain why Bonk never made it big in North America like Mario or Sonic.
[img width=320 height=316]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oErLX7bYBH8/WDOY4uHTQ_I/AAAAAAAAAoc/wyoo8vNHS78pWT2QOHJMCU7pwu1UJ_CYQCLcB/s320/Gargoyles%2BQuest%2Bbox.jpg[/img] Box art scan shamelessly stolen from GameFAQs. Someone at Capcom USA should have been sacked for turning Firebrand into a green gargoyle instead of his signature crimson.
From time to time, video game companies see fit to tinker with their intellectual properties. This may be due to creative surges within the development teams wanting to try something new. Sometimes a dev team knows the formula within a given series has become stale or rote, and they feel the need to mix things up. There are examples where changing the formula has had resounding success, such as Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as well as instances where this approach completely flopped, as was the case with Accolade's Bubsy 3D. Whatever the reason, creative minds generally need to branch out to do different things to keep things fresh and flex their creative muscle.
Such is the case with Gargoyle's Quest from Capcom. It's sort of an off-shoot of the Makai-Mura series, better known as Ghosts 'n Goblins, or Ghouls 'n Ghosts. In Japan, the game is known as Reddo Arima: Makai-Mura Gaiden, which can be roughly translated as Red Arremer: Demon World Village Side-Story. Rather than starring the main protagonist of the Ghosts/Ghouls series, Arthur, it actually stars the "red arremer" enemy from the original game known as Firebrand. Based on the game's plot, it could be seen as a prequel to the original game, which you find out at the end.
If I were asked to describe Jaleco, I would define it as a company the on the edge of greatness. Their catalog is filled with titles that, while above average, didn't quite reach the same heights as their contemporaries. Released for the Famicom in 1992, Pizza Pop! places the player in the role of a pizza delivery boy who is trying to earn enough money to buy his girlfriend Betty a ring. As he pushes onward to his delivery, he has to deal with his rival, Nick and his army of minions.
My friend's Nintendo Christmas tree. I'm more than a little jealous.
Like many of us, I've had a lot to think about in 2016 that hasn't been entirely pleasant. On top of any personal circumstances some may have had to deal with, there's been enough divisiveness and controversy on a macro level throughout the year, and particularly in the last month, to make anyone's head spin. I have no interest in bringing all that negativity to this community, but I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't at least acknowledge the fact that it's affected me deeply recently, to the point where I had a hard time getting into a proper head space to decide what I wanted to write about this month.
Fortunately, and what shouldn't have been surprising, I eventually realized that once I stopped looking back at what couldn't be changed and started looking forward to the weeks ahead, an appropriate topic was staring me right in the face. It's December now, and with that comes holiday sales, time with friends and family, and hopefully for most of us, some time off from work or school to spend gaming. Whether it's trying out a newly acquired gift we weren't expecting, or finally breaking into that special game we've been dying to try out (you know the one I mean; that gift from you, to you for being so good this year), this is a great time to purge the negativity from the rest of the year, recharge the ole mental batteries, and think back on some of the best holiday memories of year's past.
Back around 2004 I ordered my first box of NES games off of Ebay. There were about 40 games in it and it cost me around $100. I was mostly trying to acquire some games I had as a kid like Hydlide, Karnov, Ninja Gaiden and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was very cool to explore other games that I didn't even know existed that also came in the box, including unusual games like Chiller, hidden gems like Kickle Cubicle, and classics like Contra. In retrospect, it was an amazing deal, but I didn't know that at the time. I had just picked up a cheap NES at a local Pawn Shop and was looking for some software to play on it...simple as that. After enjoying the next couple of weeks of immensely exploring each and every title in the box, I realized I had awakened something I didn't know was inside me.
Growing up as a kid in the 80's, I have vivid memories of walking into the local arcades of the time and pumping countless quarters/tokens into those high-tech cabinets. Some of my favorite machines of the that bygone era were the brawlers. While many games focused on high scores, had GAME OVER screens, and required starting back at the begging upon defeat, beat 'em ups often awarded continuous play via simple capitalism. As a result, many stage bosses got tougher and were aptly named "quarter munchers" due to their tendency to gobble shiny Washington's from your pant's pockets and/or Mom's change purse. As a kid, I'm sure few or none of us kept track of these types of expenses, it was all about popping in as much change as we could to get an end screen and enjoy that feeling of sweet bliss that would carry over to the school playground on Monday.
My favorite brawlers growing up were Double Dragon, Kung Fu Master (which may barely fit this category), and Final Fight. However, for the purposes of this article, I will only be discussing the latter.
I've been playing an insane amount of Destiny recently. I'm starting to settle into a routine of playing on certain days to get certain activities done, but I fire up Destiny almost every day for at least a little while. I recently purchased the Special Edition of Skyrim, probably my favorite game of ever and I am pretty excited for the release of Final Fantasy XV this week. These three long (unending?) games got me thinking about why some gamers play games that go on forever.
I recently took a road trip to the Denver, CO area and spent a good weekend hunting there. We had some choices for arcades to visit, but with one being in Downtown Denver and one right outside it, we made sure to find something closer, and with less traffic. Hyperspace is advertised as the Denver area's largest arcade, and its a good one to go visit if you're wanting to spend some real time surrounded by cabinets and pinball. Its a flat entrance fee for all you can game arcade action.The cost of a day pass is $12 and for $45 you can acquire a monthly pass. Every machine is set to free play and with the push of the start or credit button, you can play until your heart's content.
Greetings bipedal organisms. It has come to my attention that we as human beings (or you as whatever you are) need food to live. While eating a few meals a day typically sustains us, we often crave something more: a snack! We also like to combine our snacking with doing things we love, such as playing video games. Woe is us, however, as many of us fall into bad snacking habits while playing. Since the holiday season is upon those of us in the good ol' US of A is mainly about eating (don't let anyone tell you otherwise), I figured it would be a good time to address the pressing issues about safe snacking.
I am on record cheering with unreserved optimism for the arrival of virtual reality to the mainstream. Technology that has been teasing me for as long as I can remember seems to finally be available in a way that legitimizes VR gaming as as worthwhile venture for both gamers and developers. As a console gamer, the peripheral I was most excited for was Playstation VR, which released early in October, 2016. Though it took me longer than I anticipated to finally give it a try, I spent a few hours with it last night, and I'd love to tell you all about it!
