For a while I have been just too busy to sit down and kill some serious brain cells with an awesome video game. While I am partially responsible, I blame today's games, too. It seems like games today either involve paying to give myself a very expensive obsessive compulsive disorder (click the red button every second for 5 hours straight, then kill 10 rats, than bring me the rat skin hides after you have skinned them and clicked each one every 3 seconds for 1 1/2 hours straight, etc), or becoming part of a photo realistic murder simulator that leads to my near instant death from hundreds of yards away by someone (prepubescent) who I never see.
While admittedly there have been some amazing games written within the last 5 years, there has been an equal abundance of shitty games available for those who like bad video games from the 80's.
So thanks to Xbox Live for releasing Sega Vintage Collection. I am playing Golden Axe and Street of Rage on a 60'' flat screen TV. Its hard to say all of those words in one sentence and not feel great about life. Unfortunately I am downloading more and more and I finally came across something that turned my frown around and then back around to an even bigger frown - Dragon's Lair for the Arcade Kinect. The original Dragon's Lair of 1983 was one of the worst games of all time. The controls are truly awful - made all the more so by the beautiful animation that forms the basis of the graphics. People bought this game seeing the colorful, hand cell-shaded cinematography and expected to take part in a break through in gaming What they received was an unplayable mess. Even now, years later, a grown man, I cannot beat the first screen of the first stage. Its not like I'm particularly bad at these things. I beat Gannon before the Internet existed outside of university labs. Dragon's Lair just sucked.
Also of note on Xbox :Live - Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is awesome. The title sets a standard for excellence and it delivers. Sanctum of Slime has the original music care of Ray Parker "I Aint Scared Of No Ghost" Jr. There are a new crew of ghost busters, and its a third person shooter type of deal - lots of special beams and anti-slime attacks. It has me riveted. There have been a lot of complaints about Hollywood not making an original big budget film in some time and just writing sequels and whoring out to our nostalgia, but how can you blame them? I would be dressing up like Egon and camping out in front of the theater to see Ghostbusters 3.
While admittedly there have been some amazing games written within the last 5 years, there has been an equal abundance of shitty games available for those who like bad video games from the 80's.
So thanks to Xbox Live for releasing Sega Vintage Collection. I am playing Golden Axe and Street of Rage on a 60'' flat screen TV. Its hard to say all of those words in one sentence and not feel great about life. Unfortunately I am downloading more and more and I finally came across something that turned my frown around and then back around to an even bigger frown - Dragon's Lair for the Arcade Kinect. The original Dragon's Lair of 1983 was one of the worst games of all time. The controls are truly awful - made all the more so by the beautiful animation that forms the basis of the graphics. People bought this game seeing the colorful, hand cell-shaded cinematography and expected to take part in a break through in gaming What they received was an unplayable mess. Even now, years later, a grown man, I cannot beat the first screen of the first stage. Its not like I'm particularly bad at these things. I beat Gannon before the Internet existed outside of university labs. Dragon's Lair just sucked.
Also of note on Xbox :Live - Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is awesome. The title sets a standard for excellence and it delivers. Sanctum of Slime has the original music care of Ray Parker "I Aint Scared Of No Ghost" Jr. There are a new crew of ghost busters, and its a third person shooter type of deal - lots of special beams and anti-slime attacks. It has me riveted. There have been a lot of complaints about Hollywood not making an original big budget film in some time and just writing sequels and whoring out to our nostalgia, but how can you blame them? I would be dressing up like Egon and camping out in front of the theater to see Ghostbusters 3.
