Don’t be fooled by the key art depicting the game’s protagonist as some sort of Indiana Jones inspired bad ass. You won’t be raiding tombs and seeking treasure but instead taking out poachers and freeing captured animals. Basically the human equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog. Lest you get hippy notions of peace and happiness and […]Growl
Don’t be fooled by the key art depicting the game’s protagonist as some sort of Indiana Jones inspired bad ass. You won’t be raiding tombs and seeking treasure but instead taking out poachers and freeing captured animals. Basically the human equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog. Lest you get hippy notions of peace and happiness and […]
I’ve always appreciated light gun games from afar but was rarely interested enough to spend my quarters on them for various reasons. Light gun games back then were typically always a quarter more than everything else and when it came down to it I’d rather spend my 2 or 3 quarters on Street Fighter or […]
I wonder why Taito decided to rename Darius Force when bringing it to the US. Did Darius Twin leave such a bad impression that they wanted to distance themselves from it that bad? While I found that game middling it still had its good points. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this: Darius II […]
You know I’ve never stopped to really examine just how much I really like single screen platformers. In my mind it is easy to dismiss the “genre” since I got more than my fill of it during the Atari 2600 days. But later games such as Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros. and even Joe & Mac […]
Nowadays I have little interest in military shooters but growing up I couldn’t get enough of it. Commando, Contra, GI Joe, I loved that shit. Cabal was fairly innocuous release back in the day but looking back it was pretty ground breaking. It’s actually kind of funny to think about it but Cabal was a […]
As much as I have enjoyed the Darius games over these past decades to be completely honest the first few entries were merely solid games, more notable for their use of a triple monitor setup in the arcade than any interesting mechanics. Darius Gaiden changes all of that as it introduces a host of new […]
When the SNES first launched it was kind of funny to see all of the shooters released with crippling slowdown. Some of these were absolutely dire like Super R-Type and Gradius III despite still turning out pretty good. Meanwhile the less ambitious games within the genre turned out alright. Darius Twin is a forgotten relic […]
1992 saw many late classics for the NES and allowed the system to go out with its head held high. Or it would have if the flow of games didn’t keep coming. As the last full year the system was supported 1993 had many gems that have now gone on to become highly sought rarities […]
For as much as I might have made fun of the deluge of shmups during the 16-bit era (and rightfully so I might add) I genuinely missed the genre when it all but disappeared when the PlayStation and Saturn released. The concept of one lone ship fighting off an alien armada might have been done […]
I was never a fan of the Legend of Kage, not in the arcade and especially not on the NES. The idea of running through the treetops and fighting ninjas and assassins like in the Kung Fu flicks I used to watch was enticing for all of five minutes before I grew bored of it. […]
A long time ago Japan would get the better versions of most games simply by virtue of the fact that the games originally came from there. Many things can and will change during localization however back in the 80s that undeniable fact was taken to the extreme. Sometimes a license has to be stripped (Tokkyū […]
Jumping to conclusions and making assumptions about video games is common nature when there are so many to choose from. This was especially prominent in the 8-bit era where there were few video game magazines aside from Nintendo Power and EGM providing coverage of the games released. By the latter years of the generation as […]
With the advent of games like Pitfall and Super Mario Brothers the days of the single screen platformer were numbered. Popular at a point in time where consoles and arcade hardware were not equipped to handle scrolling backgrounds 1985 marked a turning point for the genre. However even in spite of the brilliance of the […]
Now here’s another lost gem from an underrated publisher. During the NES era when the likes of Capcom, Konami, and Acclaim (for all the wrong reasons) dominated the headlines Taito released a slew of solid action games over the years. With the likes of Little Samson, Power Blade, and Cadash under their belt they should […]
I really miss Taito. While they never quite achieved the level of acclaim as Capcom & Konami they were a lot like Natsume in that they still released many kick ass action games that were just as good if not better than their competition. Games like Power Blade and Kickmaster were some of the best […]
Sometimes it’s the most unlikely concepts that hook you. It happened with Tetris; sure you can obviously see why it was so addicting but back in the 80’s no one thought simply completing lines with geometric shapes could take over the world. Along the same lines Taito’s Cameltry allowed you to manipulate a marble by […]
Toward the end of nearly every console’s life a number of hidden gems are released. Sadly these games go unnoticed because the majority of the console’s user base has moved on. The NES was no stranger to this phenomenon, and admittedly it’s kind of hard to pay attention to the little buddy when one […]
