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Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Posted by Billy
Posted on 21 August, 2016 at 12:27AM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

I've been a fan of Naughty Dog for a long time. As a kid, I played the hell out of the Crash Bandicoot games, until I 100%'d each one. (I never got the full 105% in Crash Warped though, shame!) However, when the sixth generation of consoles came around, I decided on a Dreamcast... and then when that died, a Gamecube, since I was 9 and all the games I cared about were coming out for it. This meant that post-PS1 I missed out on the games Naughty Dog went on to make. See, after the PS1 Naughty Dog was bought by Sony, which meant that they had to leave behind their intellectual properties they created under Universal Interactive. This meant no more Crash Bandicoot from Naughty Dog, and Universal would get other companies to make games like Crash: The Wrath of Cortex. No, Naughty Dog moved onto greener pastures with Jak and Daxter, which I didn't play until years later.

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You Can Now Download RotW's Code
Posted by Billy
Posted on 10 June, 2016 at 10:27PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
You Can Now Download RotW's Code

One of the main reasons I helped start RotW was because I'd have an excuse to code a website from scratch. RotW is a great project to work on, and I'm not sure I'll ever give up on it completely. (I even just renewed the domain name!) I've always had interest in sharing the code to RotW, and possibly give back to the community a little, but I've been putting it off until now.

Hopefully someone out there will find this code useful. I decided on the GPLv3 license, because it seemed to align with what I'd like RetroCMS to become ideally. I encourange anyone out there with PHP knowledge to give it a try. I'll gladly help anyone who's interested. And if you submit any improvements, I'll gladly add them to the repro, and subsequently to RotW itself.

Check it out:

https://github.com/Billy2600/RetroCMS

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Doom Open Beta Review
Posted by Billy
Posted on 16 April, 2016 at 4:10PM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Doom Open Beta Review

So if you don't know, id Software is running an open beta for the new Doom (confusing, yes it's just called "Doom"). Doom is going to come out on May 13th, so it’s about a month away. I spent some time with the open beta, and I have to say it’s looking promising. Just like Wolfenstein: The New Order, Doom is looking to be a good mix of old and new styles of shooters. However, the open beta is multiplayer only, and is pretty light on content so it’s too early to say for sure. While there are certainly things I love about this open beta, there are also things I don’t quite like about it.

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Top 5 Post Dreamcast Sega Games
Posted by Billy
Posted on 10 April, 2016 at 09:30AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Top 5 Post Dreamcast Sega Games

I remember when I first heard about Sega leaving the console hardware business. I was so confused! Sega had always been the counter to Nintendo. Nintendo made consoles, Sega made consoles, but now there were going to be Sega games on Nintendo consoles! For anyone who grew up in the 90’s, this was crazy news. We learned in hindsight, that Sega of Japan was ran by a group of rabid monkeys or something. Purposefully sabotaging their company due to their jealousy over the success of Sega of America. I can’t think of any other reason for the disastrous handling of the Sega Saturn here in the states. Anyway, for whatever reason, Sega continued to make high quality games (let’s ignore most of the Sonic series here), and these are my favorites:

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Game and Watch Gallery 4
Posted by Lazlo Falconi
Posted on 4 April, 2016 at 8:40PM ↑ 2 ↓ 0
Game and Watch Gallery 4


Here's a real quirky one for ya. Have you heard of the Game and Watch series from Nintendo? Really? You haven't? And you already have two badges? In the early 80s and beyond, Nintendo got its first taste of the handheld market, not with the Game Boy, but with these weird, single-game units that for some reason had an alarm clock in them. Ahh, Nintendo, why do you put alarm clocks in everything? They were ugly, they weren't comfortable, and they weren't even that fun… But we still remember them fondly because we're gamers and make poor decisions I guess.

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Namco Museum Volume 1
Posted by Billy
Posted on 3 April, 2016 at 09:59AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Namco Museum Volume 1

These days, video game collections really really aren’t anything special. In-between big releases, console manufacturers are always pushing old games down our throats. But back in the PlayStation days, the concept was more novel. Whenever my parents would buy a new console, they’d always get Ms. Pac-Man for my mom, without exception. So, for our PS1, they bought Namco Museum Vol 3. Years later, when I was rediscovering the PS1 (by way of a “PS one”), we had long since lost Namco Museum so, not knowing it was a different game with different included games, I bought Volume 1. It’s thanks to games like these, that I have my appreciation and love of classic arcade gaming.

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Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Posted by Billy
Posted on 20 March, 2016 at 12:40AM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Crash Bandicoot: Warped

When it comes to the Crash Bandicoot series, I have a long history. We got a PlayStation when I was a little kid, and one of the first games we got for it was Crash Bandicoot. Like a lot of kids at that time, we played stuff out of order, so the second Crash game I played was actually Crash Bandicoot: Warped (the third one; not sure why they didn’t just call it “Crash 3”). Despite the fact that the third builds heavily off of the second, which itself has quite a few differences from the first, I never really found the transition jarring. Chalk it up to childhood, I guess. But the transition probably should've been pretty jarring -- Crash: Warped is an interesting take on how to evolve a platformer series. They say variety is the spice of life, and they certainly added lots of variety to the gameplay for the third installment. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it, though.

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Halo: Combat Evolved
Posted by Billy
Posted on 28 February, 2016 at 3:43PM ↑ 1 ↓ 0
Halo: Combat Evolved

There isn't exactly a clear line of separation between "classic" and "modern" shooters, but if I had to choose one, it would be 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved. (Other people would probably choose Half Life). In any case, Halo clearly marks the beginning of the popularity of the so-callled "military shooter." Before this point, it was mostly about being a lone fighter, fending off countless enemies. But now suddenly, you're a part of a larger fighting force, a military. Again as I said, there is no clear line of separation, so this game definitely still holds onto some shooter staples of the past. However, the things it brought to the table have stayed with the genre (especially on consoles) into today. If you are into console FPS, this game should mean a lot to you. Basically, Halo picked up the torch where Perfect Dark, another influential console shooter, left off.

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