Gamecube

How many games does it have?

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In the olden days, the number of games on a system was an important consideration for prospective customers. Magazines would track this information and ads would sometimes mention numbers. Children on the street wouldn’t stop telling you how many games their console had. There was a time when the early 16 bit (and 8 bit masquerading as 16) consoles came out and only tens of games were available. This was partly the result of the 8 to 16 bit console changeover being the first generational shift in the modern game system era as we know it. The Atari 2600 to NES transition was atypical in that, at least in the US, the console game market was in ruins. Plus, as opposed to Atari during the market’s adoption of Nintendo, the NES was still making companies a bunch of money – Sega and NEC were less proven, especially in Japan and the states respectively.

Today, it’s understood that a new system may launch with only 10 or 20 or however many games but more will be coming soon, so competitors rarely boast of the number of titles available on their platform. →  If you die in the article, you die in real life.

An ode to a fallen memory card

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In a spontaneous fit of impatience and retardation, I recently reformatted my GameCube memory card. Tales of Symphonia, which I picked up after not having played in two years, insisted the card was corrupt and needed to be wiped clean first by the GameCube’s internal mechanism, then by being throw into a wall. Instead of thinking it through and realizing I’d just been playing Metroid Prime and it saved fine and fearing I’d lose my 30 hours of Symphonia-ing, I hit “Sure, erase all of my saved games, it’s not like I put any time or effort into them” then practiced my pitching for 15 minutes.

The bad news is it was for naught as I had no clue what I needed to do next in Symphonia. After reading all of the back story (nice feature by the way) and then wandering and sailing and giant monster riding around the map for an hour I gave up knowing it was just as well. →  Guitar Hero III: Legends of Read

Review – Resident Evil Remake

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The Resident Evil Remake taught me a few important lessons, some about the series itself, and some about gaming in general. Let’s not waste any time and get right down to it.

First off, Resident Evil doesn’t actually suck. People love making fun of the pre-RE4 formula for Resident Evil games. They’ll complain about the cheesy zombies, the tank-like controls, and the obtuse puzzles. And yet none of these things could keep me from enjoying the REmake. I enjoyed having a good brainteaser to solve. I enjoyed blasting away at zombies with a well placed shotgun shell fired in a fairly realistic manner. I like the slow, plodding pace of the game, where survival is the only thing that needs to be on your mind, not time or points or action. And while there may not be an excuse for poor control, it doesn’t take that much practice to get used to steering your character around. In fact, after enough play you shouldn’t be running into zombies at all. →  18 Wheeler American Pro Reader

Review – Ikaruga

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Old-school shooters are a dying genre. There are only a handful of franchises left today, but there used to be countless shooters at your local arcade. Were they too hard for the masses? Did the arcades take something with them when they were given the final blow? It’s probably a combination of a lot of things, but at least one thing is for sure: Treasure knows shooters and Ikaruga is testament to that. Filled with excruciatingly difficult gameplay, Ikaruga makes you work for your fun.

Is the game really about black and white or red and blue? It really makes you think.

If you’ve ever played Gradius or Galaga, you essentially know how to play Ikaruga. It’s an old-school shooter that pits you against an entire army of ships wanting to decimate you. The major difference with Ikaruga is its “polar opposites” gameplay mechanic. Basically, you have white and black enemy ships. Your ship, the Ikaruga, can switch between white and black affiliations, shooting the same respective colored bullets. →  This better not be as bad as everything else here.