So I Hear The Lion King is Hard

Even though I grew up loving Disney movies, I can't recall a single video game I ever got for any of the movies that I watched over and over and over again.  Now that I'm (physically) grown up, I have the opportunity to make up for lost time and play some of these undiscovered (to me) gems.

After talking to a friend about The Lion King for Super Nintendo and how hard it was, I decided to read up on it a bit, because you see, this friend is not only female, but she doesn't play any video games.  Well, after reading up on it, it seems that there are a decent number of people out there who agree with her.  Now it's my turn.

I gotta say.  This game looks and sounds gorgeous.  But how does it play?

Well, first I come upon a lizard.  I easily bounce off his head.

Next, a porcupine.  I roar (I'm Simba as a kid, so it's more like a meow) at him.  He flips, I jump on him.  That wasn't bad at all.

Next, a bug.  This'll be easy.  Wait...I jumped off of him and he didn't die.  Now he EXPLODES.  WHAT THE FUCK?  There goes a third of my life. 

The collision detection is a little wonky in this game.  Just as I think I figure out where to jump on something, I hit what I assume is the same spot, and I lose some life.  This really comes out in the first boss battle with a hyena.  I jumped on the hump when he was tired, and it counted as a hit.  Good, I'll to that again.  Oops...that hurt me.  I tried two more places, and I was dead.  Luckily the next life, I got him in two hits.

I was rewarded with JAMES EARL JONES

This game really does look and sound cool.

Okay, after a mini-game where I catch 1 bug with Pumbaa.  I'm now in the song "I Just Can't Wait to Be King"  There's no enemies early on, just a bit of platforming.  I can do this.  After roaring at a couple of monkeys I get thrown on top of an ostrich.  After literally ten seconds, I start to wonder if I'm supposed to do something.  Well, suddenly and arrow points up...oooooh this is going to be like God of War.  I try pressing up, nothing.  So I jump, good...and I land on a pig and INSTADEATH.  There goes my last life.  This sucks.  Apparently the arrow was warning me to jump in like 5 seconds, not right away.

Apparently, there is 1 continue, so I use it.

I get to the ostrich again, and jump over the pig.  Good!  Next I duck a birds nest.  Then another pig.  Now there's TWO up arrows.  This must be double jump!  GUESS NOT!  I jump off the ostrich onto the ground and I'm dead again.  I have to do the whole level again to get to this spot.  Two up arrows, single jump.  HIT THE NEST.  One more try.  Get to the spot, double jump onto the nest?  Nope, that wasn't right either INSTADEATH.  Game over.

Rafiki looks disappointed in me.  Now I'm disappointed with myself.

Oh well.  Guess I'll have to try an easier game.  Lion King is too hard for me.

Hook!

Last night, I randomly found out that they made a Hook beat 'em up game for the arcade.  I decided at that moment that I MUST PLAY THIS.  Sadly, it was late and I'm old so I went to bed.  However, I made up for it today by playing it!

It was...fine.  You get to play as five characters from the movie including Peter Pan, Rufio and the fat kid.  Each of them have different power, reach, and speed.   I played most of the game as the fat kid as he is awesome in this game with max power, though little reach and speed. 

So the first level has an SNES version of the music from the movie, so I was really getting into it.  It was basic beat 'em up fare with pirates, but Hook music!  However, by the second level, the music got generic, and the game started to slowly regress into repetitive.  About the only interesting moment from stages 2-5 was the boss battle of 3 where you fight 2 Hook?s.  There is a nice little attention to detail, in that SPOILER just like Hook in the movie, the Hooks were wearing wigs, and they had to take time to pick it up when it came off.

Sadly, I was unable to capture the wig coming off as it was very quick when it happened.

 The game picks up again in the sixth and final stage with some cool little details, such as Smee running off with treasures (if you are able to hit him, he drops his sack along with at least half a dozen treasures), and the final battle occurring right near the crocodile, just like the movie.  Sadly, no ticking sound.

The sixth stage of the game really saved it for me.  I will definitely pick it up to play again some time, I'm sure.  It's about 40 minutes, so it's not a large time commitment. 

Super Mario RPG - First Impressions

So Clive has been mentioning Super Mario RPG a lot lately, so I start to realize that I never really played it much.  Since I have it, and since he keeps mentioning it, I may as well give it a chance.  Here's some first impressions I've had of the game:

So far, I'm liking the music.  The orchestrated classic Super Mario themes are excellent, and while upbeat, still feel very RPG-y.

Toad is dick.  I'm sick of him five minutes into the game.  Mind you, I'm saying this as someone who ALWAYS plays as Toad in any Mario Kart game.  Hopefully he gets less dickish, or I may have to shove a wrench up his ass.

It's kind of strange that Jump is a special power for Mario.  You would think that would be his regular attack, since it's always his regular attack in "real life." 

I like that you can select a bonus for leveling up, instead of just getting the generic boost.  Adds a tiny bit of customization to the game.

The Save Points thing bums me out.  I always wish there were more places to save the game in SNES and NES RPGs though.

So I have a crying frog in my party.  Yup.

The first half hour's been alright.  A little slow going, though.  I hope it picks up a bit, or I may be forced to abandoned it and get yelled at by Clive again. 

My Second Minecraft House

I went a little nuts with the glass.  So much so that there's an underwater viewing area...even though there's no visible fish in Minecraft.

Also...flat roof.

What the NRA game taught me about gun safety

Bad Dudes (Again?)

After some taunting from a dude named Clive, I decided I'd try Bad Dudes again...for Arcade!  The arcade version is called Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja and this title screen looks REALLY good (for, you know, 1989):

The game plays pretty much the same, but it looks good for 1988, so I slogged through it.  The fact that 99% of the non-boss or mini-boss enemies die in one shot kind of bored me after awhile.  It was fine early on in the game, but when I'm late in the game and I'm still cutting through dudes like butter, then it just gets ridiculous.  

The highlights for me were a boss that looked like Robocop and Sloth's lovechild

Whenever he lifted his arms to swing, I was waiting for him to shout "HEY YOU GUUUUUYS!" but he pretty much just said "DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR" every time.

The second highlight for me was the picture when the credits were rolling

Nuff said.

Craving Bad Dudes

No, I haven't suddenly turned gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).  I'm talking about the NES game.  I'm pretty sure I never actually played it when I was a kid.  Last night, I was craving this game for some reason, so I decided to give it a try.

I don't like it very much.  I'm going back to Final Fight, Double Dragon and other beat 'em ups.

The menu screen is pretty cool, though:

The Second First Post

This blog seems to have the same name and address as my old blog.  The truth is I tried to think of different names, but I kind of like the odd name that I picked out a couple of years ago.  I will be re-posting a lot of the old blog posts again, I'm sure.  Especially the retro ones.

So what's the difference between this blog and the last?  Freedom.  This is going to be way more freeform than the before.  I do this blog for my own entertainment, and I'm kind of a quirky guy, so this blog is going to be quirky, too.  Some posts are going to be like my old style Retro Reviews, a lot of others are going to be like the post that I actually typed up before this one, but it will post shortly after.  They're going to be short.  I may randomly decided to post of picture of my first house in Minecraft some time.  Or I may do some more Stream of Consciousness through a game, or maybe even many games throughout a day.  I don't know.  My only goal in regards to this blog is I want to do more than 1 post a week, on average.

1 down 51 to go.