Category: Uncategorized

Konami – legends of 8-bit gaming

Konami was one of the best known video game developers of the 8-bit era. Take away Top Gun they made for the NES, and their library is near perfect. Konami was known for the difficulty of their games and kick ass music. Add normally well done graphics, Konami made some of the best NES games out there. They also gave us the most famous cheat code in history. We all know it – Up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, B, A, start.

(Contra, what more needs to be said? This is a video game.)

A friend that lived across the alley from me introduced me to my first Konami game. That game was called Contra. Contra is a military vs alien platforming action game. The game starts with you with three lives and is known for dozens of enemies on screen at once, awesome stage designs and some of the coolest boss battles on the NES. Like most, we somehow heard from a friend who heard it from a friend about the Konami cheat I mentioned before, which gave you 30 lives. Even today, Contra holds up well due to spot on controls and awesome weapons.

Almost around this same time-frame, my now brother-in-law and sister were actually living about six houses down from my parents and me. My brother-in-law was in college at the time and I thought he was one of the coolest guys out there. So when he wasn’t busy, we played video games. He had a Konami game called Jackal. The game was a lot like Contra. Instead of controlling a person however, you controlled a jeep which shot grenades, which could be upgraded for missiles. Like Contra, this game had excellent controls, diverse levels and kick ass boss fights.

Two games I borrowed from friends and rented were Lifeforce and Gradius. Both are space flying fighters. Like Contra, these games are known for their difficulty. But once again, these games have kick ass music, kick ass weapons and level designs. While they fell short for me when compared to Contra, both were fun and enjoyable games I highly recommend for any new retro gamer out there.

Blades of Steel was a game I rented and loved. While not a hockey fan back then or now, Blades of Steel was fun because it was more about fighting than the actual hockey game. Many NES Sports Games top ten lists has this game on it. The game had good graphics, simple but good play control and comical game play. We all spent a few hours beating the hell out of the other team. The score of the game came second to the fighting.

(Castlevania. Masterpiece.)

Castlevania. My God, what more needs to be said? Part one and three are classics. Near perfection in video gaming history. Part two has gotten more popular in recent years. Even if you still hate it just remember the old Meatloaf song states “Two out of three ain’t bad” and Konami made two of the greatest 8-bit masterpieces ever made. Cool graphics. Legendary boss fights. Some of the greatest video game music ever composed. And us kids yelling and tossing our controllers due to the difficulty of these games. I can’t say enough great things about Castlevania. Just talking about it has my nipples hard.

(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Arcade Game. One of the best “beat em ups” on the NES and another Konami masterpiece.)

Last but not least, let’s talk about the three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The first one for years was hated for odd enemies never seen in the cartoon and its difficulty. While the game took heat early on, with thanks to online gamers and speed-runners, the game is now seen as somewhat of a classic. While less popular than the other two, this game had awesome music and cool power-ups. TMNT2 the Arcade Game was awesome. The game was a “beat em up” and I would argue one of the best, if not the best on the NES. TMNT3 the Manhattan Project won Nintendo Power Magazine game of the year in 1992. The game is either loved or hated by TMNT fans. I think TMNT3 while not as fun as TMNT2, is still a very good game.

I could go on and on. Konami were masters of the 8-bit. They made other underrated titles such as Goonies 2, which has gained popularity over the past few years. Rush N’ Attack while no Contra, was still a decent game. Double Dribble is a sports classic. Base Wars is an underrated sports title that me and a childhood friend wasted hours on. If you are new to retro gaming, just stay away from the two Top Gun games. I am not sure what Konami was doing during the process of making those two games.

In recent years Konami has taken a lot of shit. Some blame them for ruining the Silent Hill games. Others mock their attempts as they take on FIFA at making soccer games. We can debate this all day long. One thing is carved in stone. Konami were masters during the 8-bit era. If you say you don’t like a Konami game during this era, you are clearly lying or know nothing about video gaming.

Best selling video games of all-time

Taken from here with complete list of sources –

Minecraft180,000,000[b]Multi-platformNovember 18, 2011[c]MojangXbox Game StudiosGreen tick[3]
Tetris170,000,000[b]Multi-platformJune 6, 1984ElektronorgtechnicaVarious[d]Green tick[5][e]
Grand Theft Auto V115,000,000Multi-platformSeptember 17, 2013Rockstar NorthRockstar GamesGreen tick[9]
Wii Sports82,880,000WiiNovember 19, 2006Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[10]
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds50,000,000Multi-platformDecember 20, 2017PUBG CorporationPUBG CorporationGreen tick[11]
Super Mario Bros.48,240,000Multi-platformSeptember 13, 1985NintendoNintendoGreen tick[f]
Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow47,520,000Multi-platformFebruary 27, 1996Game FreakNintendoGreen tick[g]
Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus43,800,000WiiDecember 1, 2007Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[10]
Mario Kart Wii37,240,000WiiApril 10, 2008Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[10]
Wii Sports Resort33,110,000WiiJune 25, 2009Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[10]
New Super Mario Bros.30,800,000Nintendo DSMay 15, 2006Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[18]
New Super Mario Bros. Wii30,280,000WiiNovember 11, 2009Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[10]
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [19]30,000,000Multi-platformNovember 11, 2011Bethesda Game StudiosBethesda SoftworksGreen tick[20]
Diablo III and Reaper of Souls30,000,000Multi-platformMay 16, 2012Blizzard EntertainmentBlizzard EntertainmentGreen tick[21]
Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal29,490,000Game Boy ColorNovember 21, 1999Game FreakNintendoGreen tick[h]
Duck Hunt28,300,000NESApril 21, 1984Nintendo R&D1NintendoGreen tick[23]
Wii Play28,020,000WiiDecember 2, 2006Nintendo EADNintendo☒[10]
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas27,500,000Multi-platformOctober 26, 2004Rockstar NorthRockstar Games☒[24]
Mario Kart 8/Deluxe27,450,000Multi-platformMay 29, 2014Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[i]
Terraria27,000,000[b]Multi-platformMay 16, 2011Re-LogicRe-LogicGreen tick[27]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 326,500,000Multi-platformNovember 8, 2011Infinity Ward
Sledgehammer Games		ActivisionGreen tick[28]
Red Dead Redemption 226,500,000Multi-platformOctober 26, 2018Rockstar StudiosRockstar GamesGreen tick[9]
Call of Duty: Black Ops26,200,000Multi-platformNovember 9, 2010TreyarchActivisionGreen tick[28]
Grand Theft Auto IV25,000,000Multi-platformApril 29, 2008Rockstar NorthRockstar GamesGreen tick[29]
Pokémon Sun/Moon/Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon24,740,000Nintendo 3DSNovember 18, 2016Game FreakNintendo / The Pokémon CompanyGreen tick[j]
Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum24,730,000Nintendo DSSeptember 28, 2006Game FreakNintendo / The Pokémon CompanyGreen tick[k]
Call of Duty: Black Ops II24,200,000Multi-platformNovember 12, 2012TreyarchActivisionGreen tick[28]
FIFA 1824,000,000Multi-platformSeptember 29, 2017EA CanadaElectronic ArtsGreen tick[32]
Kinect Adventures!24,000,000Xbox 360November 4, 2010Good Science StudioXbox Game StudiosGreen tick[33]
Sonic the Hedgehog23,982,960[b]Multi-platformJune 23, 1991Sonic TeamSegaGreen tick[l]
Nintendogs23,960,000Nintendo DSApril 21, 2005Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[18]
Mario Kart DS23,600,000Nintendo DSNovember 14, 2005Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[18]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 222,700,000Multi-platformNovember 10, 2009Infinity WardActivisionGreen tick[28]
Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald22,540,000Game Boy AdvanceNovember 21, 2002Game FreakNintendo / The Pokémon CompanyGreen tick[m]
Borderlands 222,000,000Multi-platformSeptember 18, 2012Gearbox Software2K GamesGreen tick[40]
Super Mario World20,972,500Multi-platformNovember 21, 1990Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[n]
Frogger20,000,000Multi-platformJune 5, 1981KonamiSega☒[41][42]
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City20,000,000Multi-platformOctober 27, 2002Rockstar NorthRockstar Games☒[43]
Lemmings20,000,000Multi-platformFebruary 14, 1991DMA DesignPsygnosis☒[44]
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt20,000,000Multi-platformMay 19, 2015CD Projekt RedCD ProjektGreen tick[45]
Brain Age19,010,000Nintendo DSMay 19, 2005Nintendo SPDNintendoGreen tick[18]
Super Mario Bros. 319,000,000Multi-platformOctober 23, 1988NintendoNintendoGreen tick[o]
Call of Duty: Ghosts19,000,000Multi-platformNovember 5, 2013Infinity WardActivisionGreen tick[47]
Mario Kart 718,470,000Nintendo 3DSDecember 1, 2011Nintendo EADNintendoGreen tick[30]
Super Mario Land18,370,500Multi-platformApril 21, 1989Nintendo R&D1NintendoGreen tick[p]
Grand Theft Auto III17,500,000Multi-platformOctober 22, 2001DMA DesignRockstar Games☒[43]
The Last of Us17,000,000Multi-platformJune 14, 2013Naughty DogSony Computer EntertainmentGreen tick[50]
Pokémon X and Y16,420,000Nintendo 3DSOctober 12, 2013Game FreakNintendo / The Pokémon CompanyGreen tick[30]
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild16,040,000Multi-platformMarch 3, 2017Nintendo EPDNintendo☒[q]
The Sims16,000,000Multi-platformJanuary 31, 2000MaxisElectronic Arts☒[52]
Need for Speed: Most Wanted16,000,000Multi-platformNovember 11, 2005EA Black BoxElectronic Arts☒[53]

The Atari is overrated

I know, I know. The Atari was groundbreaking. They made playing video games at home “cool” and the norm. If I had to make a top 10 list of best consoles ever made, I would list the Atari 2600. With that said, was the Atari really that good? For every decent game on the console there were 100 shitty ones. The Atari 5200 was a flop. The 7800 didn’t do well. And the Atari Jaguar…. Yeah, let’s just move on.

This article won’t be me wasting your time on the entire history of the Atari. To make a long story very short, the Atari was known for home computers. Then they got into video games. The Atari 2600 is still one of the best known video gaming consoles ever made. We all know their logo. The Atari is as 1980’s as big hair, hair bands and MTV were to the era.

(The Atari 2600. One of the most important video game consoles of all-time.)

Atari gave us the experience to play such classics as Space Invaders, Pitfall and Asteroids in the luxury of our own homes. They dominated the early era of video gaming. They were also the near downfall of home video gaming. Disasters such as ET and Pac-Man almost destroyed home gaming. Atari wasted millions to produce these games to little fanfare. ET is considered by most to be one of the most broken video games in history. Their home version of Pac-Man suffered from glitches and was not even half as fun as the arcade version.

(ET, one of the biggest flops and worst video games in history. Myths and legends have been made about this game.)

Sadly Atari did not learn from their mistakes. Their next system the Atari 5200, was junk. It suffered from numerous controller malfunctions and lacked a library of good games. The Atari 7800 was also a flop, coming in third in sales behind both Nintendo and Sega. The Atari tried a comeback during the 16-bit wars, only to be laughed out of the market. The Atari Jaguar, a misleading 64-bit system was a complete flop, selling between 100,000 and 200,000 units. The SNES and Sega Genesis had sales of 49.1 million and 30.7 million, easily dominating Atari. The Atari also got into the handheld gaming world with the Lynx, also a flop.

(A 32-bit system that misled the public about having 64-bit graphics. Still got destroyed by the 16-bit SNES and Sega Genesis.)

We all know those Atari fanboys. They love their Atari. Look, I’m not saying everything they did sucked. I wasted a many hours myself playing Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. When you look at the entire history of Atari, the bad outweighs the good. Atari had about a five year window of greatness and about 15 years-worth of failure. While I respect what the Atari 2600 did, overall, Atari is overrated. Nintendo, Sega and the newer systems such as PlayStation and the Xbox have all done more for the video gaming world.

Life is Strange – 9 out of 10 (sleeper hit)

(Max Caulfield. She will steal your heart with comments like “Are you cereal” like she did with me.)

Life is Strange is one of those surprise games. Before I downloaded episode 1, I had never heard anyone mention the game. It wasn’t one of those games that was hyped like Grand Theft Auto 5 or Red Dead Redemption 2. While the game received mediocre reviews overall, the game has one of the most loyal fanbases I’ve ever seen. You can count me as one of these fans.

I will start this review a little different. I will begin with the bad in the game. The graphics are out of date. A few cut scenes are terrible, as mouths of the characters don’t move while they speak. Some of the script is beyond stupid. I feel the writers were pressured into completion and just threw dialogue in there at times. The plot has more holes it in than a porno script. Normally all of this leads to a game sucking. Not the case with Life is Strange.

Why do we love this game? Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. That’s why. I am near 40 now and I can relate to them growing up. In high school I went through the whole “punk look” like Chloe, wearing leather jackets, gauges in my ears and combat boots. Deep down inside I was a nerd more like Max. Like Chloe, I had a couple of close friends that moved away.

Making decisions in the game actually matter. The first time I played, Frank Bowers hated Max. Second time I played the game, he was mostly nice. All of this was based on things I said and did toward him. During my first ever play through I made some dumb choices. This led to me watching the sweet Kate Marsh commit suicide. That was a shocking moment I did not expect.

(I still hate Mark Jefferson.)

The game had a lot of shocking moments. Nathan Prescott goes from rude prep to a crazed stalker. Frank Bowers, mean drug dealer, becomes a major ally in helping solve the mystery of Rachel Amber. Mr. Wells is shown to have personal issues such as heavy drinking, due to him being a coward and letting the rich elite snobs push him around, such as not punishing Nathan for having a gun. David Madsen, mostly portrayed as mentally unstable due to war, ends up saving Max. Then ole Mr. Jefferson. The beloved teacher who turned out to be the mastermind behind Rachel Amber’s death, the kidnapping of numerous girls and the dick who shot Chloe Price.

Life is Strange was the first game in a longtime to actually make me sad. When I saw Mark Jefferson shoot Chloe, I can recall yelling at my TV because Max was too weak to use her rewind power. Watching Kate die almost made me reset and start over, as I didn’t want to see her commit suicide. Having to pick on sparing Chloe or Arcadia Bay was stressful. My first play through I spared the Bay. Having to watch Chloe get shot again, well, it sucked. Sucked bad. Add a funeral scene with sad music at the end, damn you developers.

(Yeah, let’s just add as many sad scenes as we can toward the end.)

Max and Chloe have both became favorite video game characters of mine. The chemistry between the two was done well. Chloe is rebellious, but deep down inside she strives to be Max. Max on the other hand, learns to be more self-confident through the chapters as she spends more and more time with Chloe. Chloe learns from Max and offers to give her life for the greater good. A first as throughout the game before that point, everything was about Chloe. She was against her mom getting remarried, upset when she found out Rachel was seeing Frank and would go off anytime Max disagreed with her.

Life is Strange is a great video game. It has a very nostalgic feeling to it. People of the same age group of Max and Chloe can easily relate to them. Someone my age can too, as I’ve been through many of the things they have. A great story and great characters can win people of any age group over. Life is Strange does that well. I am happy I discovered this game by pure accident back in 2015.

While the game is far from perfect, the beautiful story and awesome two main characters make up for the bad. I give this game a 9 out of 10. This game was the sleeper success story of 2015.

The Sega Master System – underrated and easily forgotten

My first video gaming system was the Sega Master System. To this day it’s one of the least talked about retro video gaming systems out there. We all know Atari. Before Nintendo, Atari was on top of the video gaming world before the infamous “Video Game Crash” of 1983. In 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Brothers and dominated the video game industry for years to come.

(The Sega Master System. One of the most underrated systems in video game history.)

Forgotten in this mess is the Sega Master System. As a child I went to two flea markets with my dad. Both had arcades. A few of the machines were Sega games. When I asked my mom for a video game system at age 5 she asked “Do you want a Nintendo, Atari or Sega?” Now, remember, Nintendo was just taking off around this time. I knew Sega from the arcades. I said “Sega” and I only regret not loving this system more when I owned it as a child.

The Sega Master System was amazing. Believe it or not, it actually had superior graphics 9 out of 10 times when compared to the Nintendo. Unfortunately Nintendo basically had a monopoly on third party games. This meant for every game Sega made, the Nintendo could make five. Sega missed out on a lot of Konami, Sunsoft and Capcom classics to name a few. Less great titles meant less popularity and sells.

Sega also suffered from not having a mascot that could compete with Mario. Super Mario Brothers 1 was huge. While part two didn’t do as well, Super Mario Brothers 3 became one of the greatest and well-known video games in history. Before Sega made Sonic the Hedgehog famous, their mascot was Alex the Kidd. While many of his games were great, they were nowhere near the near perfection of Super Mario Brothers’ games.

Sad that so many people in the United States never owned a Sega Master System. They had some great games. I will even argue that some of their titles that Nintendo had also were better on the Master System. Take Alien Syndrome for instance. The Master System’s version had better graphics by far. The Master System’s Ninja Gaiden was more like the arcade and a completely different game than the NES version. The Master System’s Shinobi was a masterpiece. The NES Shinobi, not so much. I also preferred the gun games. The NES had Duck Hunt and Wild Gunmen. The rest of their gun games pretty much sucked. Safari Hunt on the Master System had better levels, more targets and looked better than Duck Hunt. Gangster Town was as fun as Wild Gunmen. Rescue Mission was way better than Gotcha on the NES.

(Safari Hunt. More colors and way more targets than Duck Hunt. Personally, I think it’s way better than Duck Hunt.)

In the long run, the Nintendo destroyed the Sega Master System. The original NES was a hit in North America and Japan, as well as most of the world. The original NES currently has sales of 61.5 million worldwide. The Sega Master System sales stand at 13 million. While widely popular in most of Western Europe and parts of South America, it failed in the United States and Japan.

(One of the best 8-bit platforming games nobody talks about, Kung Fu Kid.)

I love the NES. I understand why it killed the Master System in sales. It had way more great games due to third-party developers. Even I prefer and love the NES more. With that said, the Sega Master System holds a dear place in my heart. I loved games like the Kung Fu Kid, Shinobi and Alex Kidd in Miracle World. I am very lucky to have been one of the few Americans that got to experience the underrated greatness of the Sega Master System.

LJN – worse than hell

When you hear Rock Star Games, you think fun. Grand Theft Auto and Red Redemption games come to mind. Rock Star has made some of the best-selling and critically acclaimed games in history. If you grew up during the 8 and 16 bit eras, you know and love Capcom. They gave us classics like the Mega Man series, Ducktales and the Street Fighter games. Maybe you were a Konami fanboy. They made the hard games we love such as Contra, Lifeforce and Jackal. Or maybe you loved Sunsoft which gave us the awesome NES Batman game, the arcade classic Spy Hunter and the underrated Gremlins 2.

Then there is LJN. They were the exact opposite of the video game companies I named above. They made disaster after disaster. Failure after failure. And it’s not like they did this with one genre of games. They ruined platforming games, side scrolling games and sports. When you see a LJN logo, you would be better off using meth than playing these games.

Look, every company makes a bad game. Companies have low points during their history. Konami made Top Gun for the NES. It sucks worse than a Pauly Shore movie. You can’t knock them all out of the park. But it’s not like Konami kept making more Top Guns. They made classics with a fuck up there and there. LJN kept dumping out turd after turd. If I ever become an enemy of the state, the FBI or military would not need torture. Just put me in a room and force me to play LJN games. I would find the body of Jimmy Hoffa.

(X-Men for the NES. Your parents might as well bought dog shit with their hard earned money than wasted it on this crap.)
(The infamous LJN Logo. Also known as the video game face of Satan himself.)

I could name a bad game that Rock Star, Capcom and Sunsoft all made like I did with Konami. But their overall body of work outweighs the bad. LJN has a never ending list of shit. Back to the Future, sucks. Beetlejuice, horse shit. MLB (baseball) a broken mess. X-Men, basically unplayable. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, some of the worst video game controls in history. Nightmare on Elm Street, a real life nightmare. Bill and Ted, a disgrace to humanity. You see a pattern here?

We all should be thankful that LJN is no more. Sadly, us children of the 1980’s and much of the 1990’s had to suffer through their games. Our hard-working parents wasted money on these games that we stopped playing within the first hour of owning them. Many of us wasted a weekend renting these terrible games. We broke controllers over these worthless games. I still drink heavily when I hear someone utter the words “LJN”. I picture hell itself being nothing but NES systems with nothing but LJN games to play.

Hydlide – 1 out of 10 (made by Satan himself)

Hydlide…… How much crack cocaine was being smoked by these game designers? Who looked at the final product and said “We need to release this game”? This game is one of the worst video games in the history of video games. It sucks. It blows. Everyone involved in making this game should be charged with war crimes against humanity.

(You would have to be drunk off a case of beer and several shots of cheap Scotch to attempt to wanna play this game for more than 60 seconds.)

Where to even begin with this disaster??? Let’s start out with the music. It is some of the most annoying sound effects put on a 5-6 loop. You will have nightmares if you listen to the music for more than two minutes. Then, take a look at the graphics. What are you looking at? It’s like staring at vomit meets “I ate too much Mexican food” dump you took. The game is uglier than Rosie O’Donnell in a thong.

Gameplay? That is an insult to even say this game has gameplay. Attacking an enemy is done by bumping into them and smashing the buttons on the control in hopes of killing the enemy instead of it killing you. Let me repeat this. To attack an enemy, you bump into them. That’s correct, no attack animation like you see in games like Zelda, Contra, Ninja Gaiden or every other game made in the history of gaming. Just run into the enemy and pray for the best.

Enemies? You have some awesome ones, let me tell you. Bees. That is correct. Bees are a common one. A moving bush. A rock. Walking fireballs. Sometimes walking into a dark room will kill you for no reason, as proven by the Angry Video Game Nerd. As I said in my opening paragraph, this game had to be made due to tons of crack smoking.

Yes, I did own this game. My dad’s company closed down and my parents had little money for about a year. This was a birthday gift, as my dad found this game for around $10 at Toy-R-Us. I know my dad tried, but he might as well gave me a bag of broken glass to play with. It probably would have been more fun and I would have cool scares to show off. Instead, I am scared for life having played this abomination.

This game is a 1 out of 10.