One of the games that happily took my 50 drachma coins back in the day was Snow Brothers. The game controls somewhat like bubble bobble in that you have a character (a snowman) going around a static screen and you attack firebreathing monsters with little boomerangs made of snow. Throw enough of them on an enemy and you make them into a snowball that you can roll onto other enemies.

The end goal, if I remember correctly, is to rescue your girlfriend (aren't most older games pretty similar in objectives?). I never got really far in the game - maybe up to the third boss (so 30 stages?), but it was a great game to play on those afternoons after school!

Tags: video, games, video games, arcade

Back in the early 90s I had a super nintendo system. I didn't have that many games. One of the games I was dying to get was Inspector Gadget and luckily my mom pulled through and made my day one of those birthdays .

The game was really a straight forward platformer. Penny get abducted by Dr. Claws and Gadget is off to rescue her in typical gadget-esque fashion. He does get power-ups throughout the game, such as the mini-gadgets that attack enemies in front of you, suction-cup arrows, and the helicopter blades that allow him to float through the air (among other things).

I remember going up all the way to the amazon level and then dying...and dying again...and again. I never got to the end (my SNES and all my games were stolen when someone broke into my friend's house to whom I had loaded my system) but the game was nevertheless fun to try to beat. I never felt like I was gridinng through the levels. I did feel frustrated in the amazon though.

If you see this game on an SNES, emulator or gametap near you, give it a try.

Tags: video games, video, games, SNES

One of the video games, from my childhood, that really stand out on the Amiga platform for me is Chuck Rock. This game is a typical side-scrolling platformer. The overall plot isn't that sophisticated. Chuck's wife (or girlfriend) is abducted by an evil doer and Chuck being the cavalier caveman that he is must go rescue her.

Along the road there will be some dinosaurs that help chuck on his noble quest, and some that will impede him by draining him of life. Chuck can attack these bad dinosaurs by either throwing stones at them, or by attacking them with his belly (this approach resorted to a lot of button mashing because I couldn't figure out when to press the button to attack and not be hit back).

I think the thing that really comes to mind when I think of Chuck Rock is not the game itself, but rather the introduction to the game. It was a pretty cool intro! (see video).





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Rock

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games

To tell you the truth, this was a somewhat non-memorable game.
It is true that it had some great graphics, compared to other games I had played on portable platforms at the time. The story is essentially Mickey falling asleep on a fairy tale book, and he becomes the protagonist that saves the land.


The stages in the game were good. As I see screenshots of the game, my memory is jogged, but it's nothing like some of the NES, gameboy and Amiga games that I haven't played in a long time, yet still I remember,


Land of Illusion is a standard platform game, and it took me a while to complete as far as I recall. It was quite an amazing game, at the time, but for some reason it failed to make a lasting impression on me.


I kinda wonder what the deal is, because most game gear games that I have, and that I have written about, are games that either sucked really bad (and I remember that), or didn't make much of a lasting impression other than "I had that game, I played it, I completed it, it was OK". Weird...

Tags: video, video games, gameboy, games, sega, gamegear, disney, disappointment

This article was an interesting read on IGN retro.

It's an article about the origins of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM).

It brought back lot's of memories of similar gaming magazines I used to buy in Greece at that time

Look at that first cover!

The graphics are indeed indicative on a bygone era!

Tags: video, games, video games, magazines, retro

R-type was one of those games that came bundled with game boys one christmas in Greece (along with Gargoyle's Quest and Dr. Mario if I remember correctly). This was the point where many of my friends jumped into the whole game boy thing, and I could borrow this game from many friends.


In truth, I only got through the first two stages of the game, but the replayability factor of this game is sky high! Even today, I feel like buying the PSP version and playing R-Type, even though I've probably played through that first stage many, many times.


The two most memorable things about the game were the music and the power ups. The music was simply great. It had this techno beat to it and even to this day when I hear 8-bit music I am reminded of R-Type.


The power-ups were also great. Some games have the same dull weapon throughout the game. This game gave you not only new weapons for you main ship, but you could also get shields,a front or back cannon, and power ups for those too!


R-type was such a good game - no wonder the R-type name continues to this day!

Tags: video, video games, games, entertainment, nintendo, gameboy, awesome, great

This game I borrowed from the same friend I borrowed Metroid and Castlevania from. This may be the reason I did not enjoy the game as much No offense buddy!


You play as Firebrand, a gargoyle who is predestined to be the Red Blaze who saves the Ghoul Realm from the evil wrath of King Breager and brings peace to the land once again. I really don't know what this means, and I was completely puzzled when I was a kid and my english was not as good.


The intro to the game says:

A long time ago, the Ghoul Realm barely escaped great peril. A large army of Destroyers came from a neighboring universe. The creatures of the Ghoul Realm were no match for the powerful Destroyers. Just when everyone had given up hope, a great fire swept over the Realm, wiping out the Destroyers' army.
Several hundred years have passed and the Realm is threatened once again...


This game is a combination of RPG and platformer. You play the RPG elements (top down) to move from place to place, and you are in platforming mode when you enter individual stages and when you battle enemies.


I really loved the game when I was in platform mode, but when I was in the top down RPG mode, moving through the world - Boring!


I have mixed reactions to this game, but that was before I was immersed in the world of RPG games. Maybe I should try it again sometime soon!

Tags: entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, RPG, gargoyle, aaargh

Kirby's dream land was a great game. A great game along the same lines at Super Mario Land 2. In this game you play this cure like pink blob named kirby who's trying to take back the food that Kind Dedede has stolen from the people of the kingdom. In other words, Kirby is a regular robin hood.


The game play is quite good. It is a platform game where the main character can suck his enemies into his mouth and either eat them, or steal their powers. These power-ups range from wielding a sword, to spitting fire. In addition to the power-ups, Kirby can inhale air and float his was through stages - pretty convenient if you are looking to avoid enemies.


Kirby's graphics and music were great. I would play more Kirby games if they came along

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, entertainment, kirby, awesome, great

OK, this is not new, but I thought it interesting enough to repost.

I guess this was a Brazilian who liked Patapon so much that he got a patapon tattoo for 1000 brazilian real

Pretty cool, I don't know if I would spend tat much money though...

Tags: entertainment, PSP, video, video games, games

I had borrowed Metroid 2 from one of my good friends, and I *never* got to the end by myself. Sure I destroyed the ending metroid at the end of the game and saw the ending, but that was only by using the save files that my fiend had provided on the cartridge that the game was on.


Metroid 2 takes over from Metroid (on the NES). You crash land, your metroid escapes, and you need to recapture it (as far as I remember anyway). Along the way you need to pick up power-ups and kill enemies so that new areas are open to you. having come form a platform background, Metroid was quite a different game for me.


I liked the game mechanics, but when I was told that I had to go back to areas I had been before so I can blast a wall (with a weapon I just acquired) in order to move forward in the game my reaction was: whaaaat? but I just came from there! I have to go back? WTF?!?!


I've gotten used to this now, but back then this game seemed like such a hassle! I remember metroid fondly, but when I try to play any metroid now, I find that I don't have the patience. Maybe I need to find some save files

Tags: entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, metroid, aaargh

Dr. Mario was one of those games that was bundled (as far as I recollect) with gameboys in Greece sometime in the mid nineties and thus it was one of those games that most people had a lot of time to play and were eager to loan it out in return for some other more exciting game. Thus, I borrowed it from one of my friends to see what the game was about and hopefully be entertained.



Dr. Mario is a puzzle game. In a medicine bottle there are a number of bacteria (different colors) and Dr. Mario throws pills at you. The point of the game is to march the color of the pill with the bacterium in order to eradicate it, and the doctor doesn't make it easy for you (why Dr. Mario, I didn't know you were such a pill pusher!)



People who enjoyed Tetris, and other puzzle games, would enjoy Dr. Mario. It's certainly a good game to play while commuting to and from work. Beyond that, Dr. Mario was nothing special.

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, entertainment, nintendo, puzzle

Super Mario Land 2 was a departure from a regular mario game for me. I had not played Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES so I was not familiar with the platform/RPGish element that Nintendo already had for the Mario series.

I borrowed this game from one of my friends and I was immersed in the world! This game was frikkin' awesome! I think it's one of the few games that made me space out and really visualize myself in the world.

So what did I like about the game? Well, pretty much everything.
The graphics? - awesome!

The world? - awesome!

The stages? - awesome!

The power-ups? - pretty good!

The music? - well, OK, the music I don't remember!

Wario as a final boss was not too hard, and not too easy. I was actually able to beat him without breaking much sweat.

The on thing that I liked in SML2 over SML was that I could save my progress. One of the major projects with SML was that I needed to play from start to finish, there was no in between! With SML2 I could play, complete a stage, save, and put the game away until another time.

This game was gold!

Tags: mario, entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, great, awesome

After the punishment suffered by the original Sonic game on the game gear, I went back and got sonic 2. It's like super mario on Nintendo systems, you gotta have them all!


Sonic 2 played like the original sonic, so once I had beaten the first sonic game I was in the groove, and I was able to play this game without the same level of frustration that I had with the original sonic. Of course I also had a power adapter for my game gear which made things much, much better.


This game wasn't really memorable, unlike the first sonic game. It was really more of the same, with the exception that you now had a cute, cuddly, fury sidekick named Tails that could fly.


I would play this game again - if only to remember why the heck I played it in the first place!

Tags: video, video games, games, gamegear, sega, sonic, entertainment

SONIIIICCC!!!!! The bain of my existence, for a very, very long time! Sonic game with my game gear, and for the longest period of time it was my only game. The problem of course was that I did not have the foresight to buy an A/C power adapter for my game gear so my batteries kept dying just as I was making progress.

I think I finished the game three years after the original purchase due to both the difficulty level of the game and the fact that the game gear sucked the juice from the batteries faster than an alcoholic drinks beer at happy hour!

The game was enjoyable, and because it was my first color handheld game, it hold a special place in my memory. Both as the game that aggravate me immensely, and the game that I eventually beat after having been immersed in its wonderful graphics goodness. If I still had sonic, I don't know if I could still have the patience to play it to completion.

Tags: video, video games, games, gamegear, sega, sonic, aaargh, entertainment

I picked up this game back in the early '90s when it came out. I was in middle school, the teenage mutant ninja turtles were big, and I was visiting relatives in the USA. What better game to add to my collection of gameboy games?


The plot is rather simple. If you've ever watched the (old) animated series, you know that April O'Neil is in trouble, Shredder and Krang are the evil doers and you must save the day!


In the game you go through several stages (six if I remember correctly), to save your friend, and you are given control of the turtles, so in total you've got four tries to finish the game.


The game play was not that hard when I was a kid, I imagine it would be easier now. I managed to finish the game within months of buying it -my batteries kept dying and I did not have backups - so my gaming was sporadic.


The replayability was so-so. If you felt like going back through the levels so you can face off with Rocksteady, Beebop and the gang, then you could be entertained hours on end, even if you had finished the game once. If on the other hand you felt like 'been there, done that' - then it wasn't all that replayable.


The game was great from the perspective of a middle schooler. Now I don't know if I would enjoy it as much today, if you exclude the nostalgia factor.

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, entertainment, beatEmUp, ninjaTurtles

Back in middle school there was a lot of game trading going around. Friends used to buy games that they would like to own, but would often lend these games out to their friends. Tiny Toon Adventures was one such game. I think I traded F15 for it one lazy summer and I spent time with this excellent platform game.


In this game your character (Plucky, Buster or Hampton if I remember correctly) tried to stop Montana Max from thwarting Babs' dream of making it big. Now what a platformer has to do with helping babs' realize her dreams of stardom, who knows. What I do know is that the game was very entertaining, and I actually played it a number of times to completion while it was in my possession.


If you have a classic game boy, and happen to stumble upon this game, I recommend giving it a try.

Tags: video, video games, games, entertainment, gameboy

Streets of Rage for the Game Gear was one of those games that was supposed to be a substitute for going to the arcades. The dynamic of the video game is very much like Double Dragon or Final Fight, both games that I loved, the latter having played in the arcades.


The game allows the user to pick from one of two characters, and once you do, you can start your mission to clean up the city's dirty streets. The game is pretty straight forward, and it was enjoyable to play. It was a bit on the easy side (I beat it in a week as far as I remember), and I played it a few more times after beating it, but the replay factor is really low.


This is one of those games that I wish I could have rented.

Tags: video, video games, entertainment, gamegear, games, sega, beatEmUp

I had not played MK II very much in the arcades before I bought time game. Having just returned from Greece I did not spend much time in the arcades, so it seemed to me that a game gear game was a good compromise.

I was very happy when I went to the toys are us and plopped down some of my hard earned money to get this cartridge. I came home and put it in my game gear around 5pm. By 10pm I had beaten the game.

It would be sufficient to say that the game did not live up to my expectations. Just like Alladin it was way to easy! While I was able to play other characters and see their endings too, the replayability of this game was almost non existent.

Too bad my local movie rental place didn't rent game gear games. I could have save my money and bought a better game...

Tags: video, video games, games, gamegear, sega, mortalKombat, beatEmUp, sucks

Mortal Kombat came out in the Arcades when I was in middle school. Many kids used to skip some periods to go to our local arcade to play MK in all of its arcady glory (those were the days).

I bought Mortal Kombat for the gameboy in order to capture some of that arcade magic on the gameboy, with mixed results. I remember having a ton of fun playing MK on the gameboy, and that is what matter.

Sure the graphics were...not that great, and the controls were stiff (at best), but I did manage to complete the game with a number of characters and I was entertained while beating the game. The difficulty of the game wasn't too easy, and it wasn't too hard - it was just right.

The one thing that left me a bit disappointed with the video game was that the endings were not at all arcady. I found the endings to be a little bland. Oh well, it was only an original gameboy game.

Tags: entertainment, video, gameboy, games, video games, beatEmUp, mortalKombat

This is probably the weirdest game I've ever bought (by itself - not part of a bundle).

F15 is a flight simulator game where you pilot an F15 and go out and complete missions (I think this one took place during desert storm). Now I never was a flight simulator person. I would play a flight sim if I bought it as part of a package (just so I felt that my money wasn't wasted), but I never really went out of my way to buy a flight sim - except for this one.

So what happened? My friend's older brother played flight sims all the time, and it seemed that all the cool kids did so too! So in my 12-year-old-mind, if the cool kids are playing flight sim and they are by definition cool, then if you play flight sims, you are cool!

In any case, I bought the game and sunk a lot of time into it, not because I enjoyed the flight sim (I would rate this game a C+/B-), but because it took so damned long to get anywhere! I would put the game in autopilot and go grab a sandwich. By the time I got my sandwich I was at the destination I had to bomb.

Eh...I learned my lesson.

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, flightSimulator, simulator, sucks

Terminator 2 was a video game that I loved to hate! I bought termnator 2 for the game boy when I was still living in Greece and I was vacationing in the USA. I was quite a huge terminator fan (still am) and I wanted to play the game. I don't recall what I expected from a game based on a movie franchise, but I remember liking it and then getting really frustrated and hating it.

In the game you start off as John Connor in the future. You start off trying to infiltrate Skynet's fortress so that you can get your hands on a T800 and send it back through time. Once you do that, you play as the T800 protecting John Connor's younger self.

The game was great and it sucked you into the world, one problem - I disliked puzzles back then (with the exception of Tetris). After you infiltrate skynet, you have to play this set of puzzle games to reprogram the T800. I kept failing in the last puzzle and eventually got booted back to the beginning of the game - frustration!

It may be good revising this game at some point in the future

Tags: entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, terminator

Another gameboy game that I got during my summer of Gameboy purchases in the early 90s was Robocop for the Gameboy. I had recently seen the movie and wanted a piece of the Robocop pie. I thought the game would be as engaging at the movie - wrong!

In the game you play Robocop (d'uh!) going around shooting criminals. Your regular gun gives you unlimited ammunition, while special guns that you pick up throughout the game give you limited rounds of higher powered weapons.

The plot, as far as I remember, was not bad, but the game play was. Robocop was stiff, kinda like Simon Belmont in Castlevania, and about the only way to clear the stages was to memorize where the enemies come out, and proceed through stages with guns blazing, rapid fire style.

I don't think I ever finished the game. I think I got bored of losing after a certain spot. Even for nostalgia purposes I don't think I would spend that much time with this game.

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, robocop, entertainment, sucks

Burai Fighter was one of those games that I bought when I was visiting relatives in the US while living in Greece. I will admit to this: I bought the game because of advertising! I saw advertising posters and ads in magazines about this game and I bought it (or rather asked someone to get it for me as a gift).

In this game you essentially play a man on a jet-pack going off to fight the aliens of the evil burai empire. I will give credit where credit is due: the game was actually pretty good, and the graphics were good enough for the time in which the game was developed, but the game was extremely extremely frustrating! I cannot describe how frustrating this game was ~ maybe even more than the terminator puzzle levels

One lazy summer afternoon, a year or so after I had purchased the game, I sunk a lot of hours into the game and I got to the last stage. I did not know this at the time. I fought the final boss and won. I saw the ending credits - wow! I had finally done it!

I never played the game again!

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, entertainment, buraifighter

Castlevania was one of those games that I really did not until I played Symphony of the Night on the Playstation. None the less I had a go at it when it was available on the gameboy.

I had borrowed the game from one of my friends, and I must say that I wasn't pretty impressed with it as a kid. I found the belmont sprite pretty stiff and difficult to control. I also did not like the whip as the main method of attack because it was slow to respond, so you had to time your attacks pretty well to make things work.

I had the game for a summer, but I never really managed to get into it.

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, gameboy, castlevania

Ahhh! Tetris for the gameboy!

When I bought my original gameboy (saved money for a while year to accumulate the 33,000 drachmas it cost) it came with a copy of Tetris. Tetris was quite mesmerizing, especially when you played the game with the background tune that is now recognized as the tetris tune.

As much as I loved tetris, I was never able to beat my best bud at it. I managed to get enough of a high score to make the rocket launch sequence happen, but I could never beat him (waves fist in air).

Tags: tetris, gameboy, video, video games, games, entertainment

Back when I had a game gear, I bought Aladdin for it. I had played the Genesis version of the game and liked it, and it was quite challenging! I headed to a toys R us store a few weeks later (after I had saved up enough money) to get the game gear version. Mistake!

While the graphics were nice for the device, and the game play did not disappoint, the game was too easy! Quite literally I was at the final stage, beating the final boss of the game, within hours of having purchased the game! I remember being happy that I finished the game, but quite frustrated that I had plopped $30 for a game that took me two or three hours to finish.

Comparatively, Sonic the hedgehog, the game that came with my game gear, took me YEARS to finish! OK, this was partly because of the whole battery problem, but even when I got the power adaptor for my game gear it still took MONTHS to beat, it was quite challenging! Oh well! Live and learn?

Tags: video, games, video games, sega, gamegear, disney, badgames

OK, so last week I wrote about Populous II. This week, on a similar theme, I am remising about a game called Black and White (and its sequel Black and White II). One of my friends, who is really into Real Time Strategy games, bought this pack, but he did not really like it (I guess he’s more of Panzer General type of RTS fan).

Never one to turn down a game, I took the games in and gave them a good home. In the game you play a god, and you use a giant hand to perform various miracles such as saving people, creating forests, encouraging crop growth, and so on. The game is almost like a SIM city clone. You can get people to worship you through good will, or through fear. I’ve used fear tactics when I was frustrated that my enemy god’s subjects would not worship me when I gave them food (and other) miracles. It’s surprising how much more worship you get through fear rather than being a kind god (or course in the end being a vengeful god reflects poorly on your stats, if I remember correctly).

In any case, I got to the last level of the game, but I had a hard time moving through and finishing. The last stage was de-forested, over cropped, and possibly over-mined. (in other words, humans were there), so it was difficult to expand my sphere of influence and maintain enough power to destroy my enemy god’s temple. On top of that, the game suffered from not being backed up, so when my hard drive died, so did my save-file. Oh well. If I ever have some time, I may get back to it because it was quite an entertaining game (despite the constant “we need food!” whines of the people)

Tags: video, games, video games, macintosh, SIM, RTS

In the days of my Performa 635CD (somewhere between sophomore and junior year in high school), I bought something called a MacPackAttack at my not-so-local microcenter. The pack contained ten games (on CD-ROM!!!), and one of them was Populus II: Trial of the Olympian Gods. My initial reception of the game was a lukewarm one. I was more used to the Tetris type Platform type of games. One summer I was quite bored, so I started playing more of Populous and I got sucked in!

The game is Sim game, where you have control over a certain amount of land, and your goal is to increase the number of the people that worship you (oh yes, you play an up-and-coming God), enhance their standard of living, and obliterate the people that worship enemy Gods. While I found the difficulty of the game to be a hard one, I eventually made it all the way to the end. If I remember correctly there was an Achilles spell that I could use to make my people superhuman (after a certain amount of experience and population as reached) and they could do my bidding – i.e. obliterate the competition.

It was quite an entertaining game for what it was, and there have been others that have followed in its footsteps and have made games like Populous that are entertaining (black and white comes to mind)
Sadly, there is no YouTube video that showcases the gameplay.

Tags: video, games, video games, DOS, macintosh

Back (in 2004/2005) when I was rediscovering the joy of gaming on the Mac, one of the of the games that I bought at my local Apple Store was Spyhunter. This game is a reworking of the original top-down arcade game to bring it up to date with modern 3D graphics, sounds, animation and overall excitement. I don’t remember how much I paid for the game, but I remember not feeling extremely entertained.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the game, but I vaguely remember that the price-to-entertainment value being low. I enjoyed the driving aspect of the game, but the shoot-em-up aspect was diminished by the difficult nature of driving while shooting, and the difficult nature of subsequent stages.

I recall getting near the end, but I never really finished the game. After my Mac hard drive died in and it had to be replaced, I didn’t have the save files backed up, and I did not want to start from scratch. The video bellow, taken from the PS2 version of the game, illustrates the game play.

While I have the disc, and I can most certainly play it on my Mac Mini, I don’t think I will be playing this game again any time soon as a ‘serious gamer’ (except maybe as a mini-game).

Tags: video, games, video games, macintosh, action

Recently I started listening to Retrocity, a retro gaming podcast, and Sega and the game gear were mentioned. Back when the Game Gear was released, I already owned a Gameboy (which I had bought with my own money), and I was vacationing with my dad. My ‘goal’ was to own an Atari Lynx, a Gameboy and a Game Gear. In order to get a day closer to the goal I asked my dad to buy me a Game Gear for my name day that summer.

The unit, as far as I remember, cost about $150. I was absolutely in love with the device! I only had two or three games for it, but by the time I donated it, I had amassed a whopping 7 games! The love goggles did muddy up my perception of the unit by a lot! While the colors were great, something that the Gameboy did not have, the thing ate up battery power like there was no tomorrow! The unit took six AA batteries, and that would give you an hour and a half to two hours of play time.

In order to make the unit worth while you needed to get a power adapter to hood directly into the car’s cigarette lighter port, or your home’s electrical outlet. The Game Gear went mostly unplayed before I bought the adapter (3 years after I got the unit!!!) simply because batteries were an expensive proposition, and in retrospect not environmentally safe. In the end I donated my Game Gear so it could find a good home with people who would play it a lot.

The Game Gear did have several different attachments one could buy, like a television tuner (I craved one of these since I did not have a TV in my bedroom – but never got one), and a Master System cartridge converter (also cool but in those days there was no ebay, so I could not get my hands on any cheap games)

In retrospect, for the money I paid for the Game Gear, Adapter, and all the batteries I went through, I maybe should have bought some more Gameboy games, and one of those magnifier/illuminator gadgets to play games in the dark. Oh well! This is what happens to early adopters, sometimes!

Tags: video, games, video games, sega, gamegear

Back in the days of the original gameboy (bought mine in 1990), I did not have that many games. I had Tetris and Super Mario Land. My first expansion was when I was visiting my relatives and I spent a lot of time at Toys R Us stores where relatives bought me games

One of these games was Megaman II. I had never played Megaman before, but my 11-year-old mind thought that “2” must be better than “1” so I got this Megaman to start with. I didn’t get to play the games I bought until I returned to Greece (which is where my gameboy was). I spent a lot of time on the first four bosses! I remember playing Metal Man first, and once I got to the end of the state and beat him (after many, many hours of game play), I found out that the game was not over! Darn!

I haven’t played many Megaman games after that. I have maybe played some stages on Megaman and Megaman 4 on the NES, and I have “Mega Man Powered Up” and “Mega Man Maverick Hunter X" on the PSP. What I failed to realize was that Rush (the dog companion) was not found in other Megaman games (at least the ones that I was exposed to), and it was quite a bummer.

While I no longer have Megaman II (I gave the game away, along with my gameboy), I would gladly play through it again. It was a lot of fun! Following is a video (1 of 6) that goes through the first two stages of Megaman 2, on the gameboy.

Tags: video, games, video games, megaman, gameboy

Who remembers Alone in the Dark? No! No! Not that awful Uwe Bohl film! The DOS (and subsequent Mac Port) Alone in the Dark! I bought the game back in 1995 (or was it 1996?) I still have the CD-ROM somewhere with my antique software holdings. I remember playing the game on my Performa 635CD on lazy summer afternoons. The video bellow shows how choppy the graphics were, but there was nothing scarier at the time than having a zombie come after you and you have no place to run and hide!

Maybe I should get DOSBOX to get reacquainted with this game…

Tags: video, video games, games, entertainment, DOS, macintosh, classic, system7

I’ve been hearing about Patapon on the 1Up Yours podcast for a while now, so I decided to do a YouTube search to see a bit of the gameplay. Every review I’ve seen gives the game thumbs up, and on Amazon it’s only $20. Seeing the video on YouTube made their silly little pata-pata-pata-pon song stick in a mental loop (I think I’ve been rick rolled).

Here is some wiki information on the game: CLICK

Also, the amazon product page if you are interested: Patapon




Tags: video, games, video games, patapon, PSP

Back in the days of DOS and Windows 3.1 I witnessed the heyday of Shareware on disk. Even though I owned a Mac, I could not resist deals when I went into the Staples that was next door to my dad’s garage. I saw prepackaged disks with games such as Wolfenstein for $5 (if I recall correctly). My dad and I used to visit friends with Intel 386 machines, so I always brought along the shareware that I bought at Staples.

One of these titles (and the only one that I really remember) was Wolfenstein 3D. This game was something else! I think that Wolfenstein 3D was my first FPS, and in a dark room it scared the living daylights out of me.

Here is a quick video of the game play of Wolfenstein 3D:

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, wolfenstein, DOS

Back in the day, when I had an SNES (version 2), and five games, one of those five games was Inspector Gadget. I got the game because I really liked the cartoon when I was growing up. The game, from what I remember, did not disappoint (mind you I was 12 at the time).

I never really got an opportunity to finish the game (a mix of family issues, eventual theft of my SNES and associated games, and relocation to the US), but when the golden age of emulation started, it was one of the first games I played on an emulator, and my response to it was a bit different. I don’t know if I had changed, if it just felt different playing it on a computer monitor than a television, or if using a keyboard instead of an SNES game pad was a turn off.

I still like the game. The game play wasn’t bad, and the aesthetics were in line with what I consider Inspector Gadget aesthetics to be. All things considered, it wasn’t a bad platformer.

This game video will give you a sense of how the game looked and played.

Tags: video, games, video games, SNES

Not much to say today. Its just an all around great spy game.

I started playing it on my Mac (back before the malfunction), and managed to finish the game.

It really did bother me that they never ported Splinter Cell 2 and Splinter Cell 3 to the Mac.

Tags: splinter, cell, macintosh, video, games, video games

This past weekend, in between sanding and scraping, I managed to get some time to play a video game or two.

This ritual usually starts with picking a game, playing for 10 minutes, and if it sticks, it sticks, otherwise pick another.

Since I am a bit stuck (and frustrated) with not being able to off NULL in Metal Gear Portable Ops, I decided to go back to a game that I have not played in ages (since February 2007 if I am not mistaken) - Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

I had stopped playing the game because I was not making any progress. I was about 5% done with the game when I had to go rescue some thugs from the police. Of course the police won't just let you go in and pick them up, they'll follow you, chase you, ram you if you are in the car, and get in a fire fight if you are out of it. After numerous trashed cars, and many times either getting busted or wasted I gave up.

Recently I discovered some cheats which have made the game worth while again. I gave myself some weapons, enabled the health and armor cheats, and made myself never wanted by the police. This had made the game much more enjoyable and I can now focus on the story of the game, rather than getting killed over and over and over again.

The game is still quit time consuming. I spent a greater part of Sunday playing the game and I am still only about 12% done. I guess this game will take a while to finish, but now that it was made a bit easier, I guess I will be finishing it.

The weird thing is that the main character (the one you play) in the game reminds me a lot of one of my former classmates. The digital Tony Cypriani is almost the spitting image of this former classmate.

Tags: video, games, video games, GTA, cheats

One of my first PC games was Prince of Persia, on my godmother’s 286 running Windows 3.1 and DOS. The controls were a bit clunky, the sword fights not that good, and I kept falling to my death in those endless pits. I don’t know what was worse for the prince, falling and dying from the impact, or falling and dying from the impact and being sliced by stakes on the ground. I never finished the game, but it was quite entertaining.

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, price of persia, DOS, 286

Back in the day, my grandfather had gotten me an NES clone with a cartridge that supposedly had 100 games on it, it did not. The thing looked like the picture to the left, minus the Zapper clone. In any case, I spent a lot of time playing Contra on this clone system. The controllers on the clone were a bit stiff, but that did not impede my enjoying the game. I don’t think I ever finished the game because I ended up breaking both controllers – both of which were hardwired into the console. If you have an opportunity to play it, give it a shot. It is quite an entertaining game – especially when you get the power-ups.

Tags: NES, video, video games, entertainment, shooter

Back in the good ol’ days of the Amiga…well I didn’t own one! One of my good buddies though did and he had a ton of games! One of those games was the Chaos Engine. I really enjoyed this game.

The game play was great. I really enjoyed the top-down shooter, it reminded (and still does remind) me of the days that I spent in arcades playing such games. I never really played the game through to the end. The following YouTube video, even though long, should give you a good idea of what the game was about.

I had purchased Amiga Classix 1, 2 and 3 a while back. I think it’s included in it. Maybe I should fire up an emulator!

Tags: video, games, video games, amiga, chaos, engine, shooter

Back in the day I owned an Atari 2600, but it was VERY difficult to get cartridges for it. My grandfather did not know, and I was too young to know. So in typical grandfather fashion, my grandpa got me a cheapie clone of an Atari 2600 clone with a number of games burned into the ROM. I remember the joysticks were pretty bad – they kept breaking! (maybe I was too rough with them).

In any case, I started playing this game which I later found out was called Pitfall. I enjoyed it, but I kept dying next to a scorpion. Maybe it’s time to revisit this game


Here is a review of the game (nice video of the game):



… and here is the original television commercial (yeah the video is pretty crappy, must be an old VHS dupe):

Tags: video, video games, atari, 2600, PItfall, joystick

Well, that was an interesting weekend!
With the end of the semester drawing nearer (and most of my deliverables done) I decided to take a small break from it all and make some progress on one of my games. I started with Daxter, but I am stuck, moved on the Prince of Persia: revelations, but again I am stuck. So I decided to continue with Metal Gear Portable Ops. I had made some progress, already, but hadn’t touched it since Christmas of 2007.

So…I spent most of the day recruiting enemy soldiers, placing spies, gathering new gear, and I even managed to kill python unfortunately in this endeavor I lost Centipede, one of my best soldiers – he had both great stamina and health levels – oh well!

I am now at the Airport, recruiting commandos so I can easily infiltrate without being spotted.

Tags: video, video games, metal gear, PSP

OK, I never owned an NES, but my brother did!
When I was visiting my mom and siblings in Canada back in the early early nineties I got a lot of NES time. Duck Hunt was something that came on the same cartridge as Super Mario Brothers and it used the Zapper (a gun like thing). That game was fun – but I really hated the hound that made fun of you when you messed up…

Tags: NES, entertainment, video, games, video games, mario, duck hunt

Back in the days of the 2600, I owned two games (it was hard to find cartridges in Greece). One was Donkey Kong, and the other was Galaxian. I think that I spent more time playing Galaxian than Donkey Kong. One thing that stands vividly out is that Galaxian came with a small comic book that described the back story of the game! You don’t see that any more


Here is some game footage, and a review:

Tags: atari, 2600, video, video games, games, entertainment

Ah, sweet nostalgia!
I recently saw a video of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 (my first console).
Donkey Kong was one of my first two video games. Sure it wasn't graphics intensive...but it I owned it

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, atari, 2600

Recently I've been playing Syphon Filter Dark Mirror for the Sony PSP. I've been wanting to play this game for quite some time, but only got it recently when it became part of the 'best hits' collection and thus the price dropped to a more affordable (in my mind) price of $20. In the game you play agent Gabe Logan (for the most part anyway) in his quest to root out some terrorist cell and stop their evil plot of causing great harm to the world (in other words it's sort of like Metal Gear Solid, James Bond, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell).

I played through the game in Easy mode, and now I am in the process of playing through it in Hard mode. The story is quite interesting, and it doesn't get boring (at least I did not get bored), and the game was fulfilling enough to evoke yearnings of a sequel. I think for $20, this game is well worth the price, and if you don't mind buying used (or renting), I think it's well worth giving it a try. Of course, hard core games have probably already played this game, and I am just convincing the laggards (like myself) who wait for a game to go on the reduced pricing bin before they buy it. Playing through the game in normal or hard modes unlocks extra stages to play (which I guess complete the syphon filter story). The first one is Narbonne (a city in the south of France). This was a rather short stage. Having vacationed in Narbonne a few years ago, I was expecting to go around and explore some of the city and see if the game version was as I remembered the real version to be, however this was not the case. All things considered, I liked this game.

Tags: PSP, video games, espionage, entertainment