Retro Game Friday: Virtua Cop

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m Covering a really retro game some of us who remember Arcades played. It’s Virtua Cop!

Plot: The plot is non existent, and if you played in an Arcade, you certainly weren’t going to be understanding the story.

Gameplay: That being said it was fairly fun for those played it since it really revolutionized the FPS genre, and was a major influence on games such as Goldeneye. By today’s standards, it’s nothing major at all, but it was quite a leap forward for that time period. It was a rail shooter, so you had no exploration and you were encouraged to act with precision and quickness to earn the highest score possible.

Art: The art is really outdated now, and honestly is ugly as all hell by todays standards, but it was quite amazing back then. Now though it’d be just a laughing stock.

Music: I don’t remember any of the music, mostly because it was in an Arcade. Maybe it was okay, but I couldn’t tell you.

Overall: A fun game, but quickly becomes repetitive if you could memorize the enemies positions.

For those who like: Arcade Games, Old School Rail Shooters.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above, or terrible graphics by today’s standards.

 

Retro Game Friday: F-Zero GX

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with the last entry in a series that is long overdue for another game. It’s F-Zero GX!

Plot: This had a story mode, but I honestly don’t remember it at all, which isn’t a good sign.

Gameplay: The gameplay of GX is okay, but it honestly felt more like Wipeout than F-Zero did with it’s past entry F-Zero X, which is a pity as that game was all about tight curves and high speed. This game felt more linear, and the times it wasn’t were awkward or downright frustrating for anyone with less than stellar reflexes. That said it was still a fun game, but if you didn’t have those reflexes playing this game is more an exercise in frustration than anything else.

Art: The art is okay, but it’s aged poorly, not as bad as an N64 game, but still poorly.

Music: I don’t remember a whit of it, sorry.

Overall: An okay sequel, but not a perfect sequel.

Video Game Tuesday: Mini Retro Consoles

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m talking about the recent spate of classic consoles being remade with limited emulation capabilities.  It’s all about Mini Retro Consoles!

Mini Retro Consoles?: So for those unaware the last couple years, Nintendo has released two machines that have limited emulation capabilties of classic games for the system that they are modeled off of. Although there was one special game that didn’t get released until the Super Nintendo Classic came out.

Which game?: Star Fox 2 was famously canceled after completing development in favor of giving the Nintendo 64 a Star Fox sequel. So it was released for the SNES Classic edition. Honestly while a neat story it seems to be more of a publicity stunt to me.

What remakes of classic consoles are there? There is the NES Classic, the SNES Classic and now just recently announced, Sega Genesis Mini (or Sega Mega Drive Mini).

What are the downsides?: Well other than that ridiculously short cable for the controller you see above for the NES Classic, there were limited games allowed onto the consoles. Now hackers have allowed for the importation of more games, but frankly at that point you might as well just play a PC Emulation and use a more modern controller that is a hell of a lot more ergonomic.

Why buy them?: Well other than supporting the console maker, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to do so. Honestly, I’d rather play a game with a lot more convenient and comfortable controllers now a days instead of the clunky older controllers. Just thinking about using the N64 controller gives me hand cramps.

That’s it for this Week’s Video Game Tuesday. Do you like this recent trend? Or is it just feeding off people’s nostalgia? Leave a comment below with your answer!

Retro Game Friday: Seaman

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with probably one of the oddest games ever made. It’s Seaman!

Plot Synopsis: During the 1930s, Dr. Jean Paul Gassé was a member of a special team of French biologists sent to Egypt by the French government. During that time, Dr. Gassé was determined to research a creature that was an “omnipotent messenger of gods” among the ruins of the Third Dynasty. In March 1932, in the city of Alexandria, Dr. Gassé met up a local resident, who, while fishing, caught a seaman. Dr. Gassé obtained a sample of some of the seaman eggs, and went back to France with the egg samples in his possession.When Dr. Gassé returned to France, he attempted to raise the eggs, but in the process, the seaman died. Shortly after this, he published a thesis of his work. Leading academics, however, dismissed him and his work as a PR stunt and without proper evidence to support these theories. As the result, the work was ignored, and no one believed him. His hypothesis suggested that the Seaman was responsible for transferring knowledge that increased during the Third Dynasty across oceans and other lands. This theory became the basis for Anthro-Bio Archaeology, which is a highly valued field of study.

Plot: You never get to actually learn all of that in the game, you just kind of get thrust into raising one. Yeah you read that right, this is a pet simulation game like a Tamagotchi. Huh, I probably should cover one of those in a future RGF column. Anyways, yeah the plot’s never explained.

Gameplay: You get to interact with the “Seaman” while raising it through various machinery and voice commands, but if you don’t do it every day he’d die. Sound like a Tamagotchi? Yeah it does to me too.

Art: The art is pretty aged, and frankly fairly disturbing now. Not that it was any less disturbing when it was released, it’s just the polygonal nature makes it even more jarring compared to modern day games.

Music: I don’t remember a whit, sorry.

Overall: Umm, yeah I really can’t say you should play this. If you are really desperate, I suppose it might be a fun game to play, but I can only think of it as an odd Tamagotchi.

For those who like: Oddball Games, Pet Raising, Tamagotchi.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Crazy Taxi

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a game I swore I had already covered, but apparently I never have. It’s Crazy Taxi!

Gameplay: The gameplay is quite fun with you controlling your taxi through a busy and hilly city as you ferry customers to and from their destinations. It could really get hectic, especially if you played on the lower time limitation settings. The main goal of the game was to be as fast as you could getting to the destination while performing “tricks” like barely missing cars by going on the wrong side of the street to earn you even more points. Honestly if this happened in real life, no one would ever take a cab, which might not be a bad thing? The only problem I had with the game was the time limitations seeming to be too short, but that’s just me.

Art: The art is very dated, but was awesome for the time.

Music: It was just as frenetic as the gameplay, which was kind of the point.

Overall: if you’ve never played or at least watched someone play Crazy Taxi you ought to give a shot.

For those who like: Driving Games, Crazy Drivers, Time Limitations.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.