11.22.63: Episode 2

Episode 2

"The Kill Floor"

Here is my recap of the second episode of 11.22.63.

I find myself in quite the state as I write this for you. I managed to fall asleep on the couch very early last night. Now I am awake at 5:30 in the morning. I'm in the dark, I'm highly medicated. Usually when I sleep for a very long time like this I wake up with a headache that lasts the entire day. So I took no chances, even though I feel fine, and took a bunch of headache medicine. And now I am kind of in a daze, yet I am very awake and alert. Highly caffeinated as well.

I was going to watch the Book Thief, but then I suddenly remembered that I had yet to watch the second episode of this show. Sweet. I had enjoyed the first episode a lot, and had been eager to keep watching more. It's quiet, it's dark. Perfect time to catch up!

The episode starts with a brief recap of the last episode, which is good because I am not a champion at remembering things. As I mentioned in my recap of the first episode - I don't remember specifics of the book much because I read it several years ago and have read hundreds of books since. So if this show starts to stray from the source material I probably won't notice it.

The first scene brings us to Harry's childhood. He is being chased by a pack of bullies, who knock him to the ground and steal his pants. The leader of the bullies holds him down and spits in his face. A big, wet, nasty load. Very gross. Harry remains motionless and unresponsive so the bullies eventually get tired and leave him alone.

Jake encounters the boy in a small diner, and helps him out with his no pants situation. This seems to steel Jake's resolve to save the boy from his father. The kid has already had a rough enough life. No wonder he is such a sad sack in the present day.

He goes to a local bar to find Harry's dad, Frank. Frank comes in with a bunch of co-workers from a plant that has just shut down for the day. He is told that Jake has been looking for him, so he goes to talk to Jake. Immediately you feel on edge with this guy. He seems like he has a short fuse and could go off at any minute. He just oozes menace.

They get drunk, and Jake tells him how he is there as a writer trying to capture the struggles of the real working man for his book. Frank asks Jake if he would like good material for the first chapter of the book, and Jake says yes. Frank takes him to the meat processing plant where all of the guys work. He walks him around and shows him all the disgusting things. I feel really on edge with Frank around. I thought for sure he was going to attack Jake or lock him in the room with the entrails and all the flies, but he doesn't.

Finally Frank takes him to the room where they kill all the animals. He brings out a cow and tells Jake to smash its head with a hammer. He had taken offense at Jake saying he and his comrades were scrambling around in the dirt to make a living. So now he was testing Jake to see if he considered himself one of them.

Jake refuses to kill the cow, and it seems like Frank and his goons are going to beat Jake up or something. But Frank takes the hammer, kills the cow himself, and walks out. This was a pretty tense opening 20 minutes of the show. I thought for sure it would erupt in violence at some point, but it did not. Good, dramatic, tension building story telling here. Something that Breaking Bad pulled off effortlessly - and this series seems to be doing an admirable job at as well.

The next day finds Jake safe in his hotel room. He heads to Harry's house while his father is at work and gives his mother tickets for a weekend away. Jake probably thinks that the family won't die if they aren't home. But I get the feeling that this won't be enough. He'll have to kill Frank if he wants to change the past.

Jake has dinner with the boarding house owners he is staying with. The husband tells Jake a long, boring war story about terrible things he had seen and done while overseas. Honestly, I zoned out during this. It's a very long scene. Someone knocks on the door, and it is Frank. He apologizes to Jake for his behavior the night before and wants to have a talk with him. Great, just who we wanted to see...

We can tell that the stern woman in charge of the boarding house doesn't approve of Frank, even though he acts in a very polite manner. Jake gets up and leaves with Frank, which he really shouldn't do. Frank is dangerous and unpredictable, not someone you want to be alone with.

Frank takes Jake to his butcher shop and shows him around the place. Seems like a nice visit, until he calls his wife out of the back room. She is bruised up and appears to have been crying. She has the tickets that Jake had given her earlier in her hand. Frank thinks that Jake was trying to get his wife out of the house so he could sleep with her.

He proceeds to beat Jake up (totally knew it was coming, at some point) and throws him out the front door of the butcher shop. Jake realizes what he has to do, and he goes to buy a gun. That night as he sleeps, he has a dream of a conversation he had with Al before coming into the past. This was touched on in the last episode, but explained in greater detail here. About the past not wanting to be changed, and strange things happening to keep the past from being changed. Al even believed that he developed cancer because the past was trying to keep him from changing things.

Jake wakes up and rushes into the bathroom to vomit. He has symptoms of food poisoning, but wonders if this is simply the past trying to keep him from killing Harry's father. It is Halloween, so this is when the murders supposedly had taken place. Jake watches Harry's house from the shadows as he waits for Frank to come home. According to Harry's story, the murders had taken place at 8 o'clock.

As he waits, he is grabbed from behind by some young man from the town, a knife to his throat. The past again trying to stop him from changing a major event? He tells the kid the truth about being from the future out of desperation. The kids tells him he can't be right because the time is 8:05 and nothing has happened yet. Cue screams coming from the house.

Jake threatens the kid at gunpoint and runs into the house to save the day. The kids are alive, but the mom is being assaulted with a large sledgehammer in one of the upstairs bedrooms. After a grueling battle, Jake kills Frank, but not before getting smacked around himself. He confirms that the wife and all the kids are alive, and then he runs from the house.

Jake drives away, the rain coming down in droves. He finally pulls over to a water spigot and uses it to wash his face and hands of all the blood. Um hello - it is raining very hard. Did you really have to pull over to a water spigot? He seems happy with himself that he's saved the kids, but traumatized that he just had to kill someone.

But he didn't get away scot-free. The kid from before comes out of the bushes, fixing a gun on Jake. He has a newspaper clipping in his hand from the future containing the story of JFK being assassinated. How did he get a hold of that?

The kid wants answers. And he wants them now!

End of episode.

Well, I thought this was pretty good. I liked the slow dramatic build with Jake encountering Frank, that relationship deteriorating with each passing moment. There were a few slow spots here and there. It has been a while since I have read this book, but I don't recall this particular section of the novel being so long and drawn out. Certainly it wasn't 1/8 of the entire thing.

Whether or not it stayed true to the source material or not, I liked it. I enjoy the fact that until the very end of the episode, all the JFK stuff was pushed to the side for a while. While stopping the assassination is the main focus of the series, I think this was a necessary thing to do for this particular episode. Attempting to kill Frank and change the past is a big thing for Jake, and I like that the show gave it the attention it deserved. As a stand alone episode, this was really good.

Judging from the previews it looks like we will be getting back to the JFK stuff in the next episode, which is expected. I'm eager to see what happens next - if Jake comes back to the present to see what effect his actions have had on Harry's life. If he stays in the past and resumes his quest to save JFK with the help of this kid. I don't remember what happens in the book, nor do I know if they are going to change things for the show. We shall have to wait and see.

Love the show, can't wait to see more.

I'm wide awake now, it is starting to get light outside. I could go out and get some fresh air, or maybe I could continue to drink coffee and lounge around in front of the TV for a few more hours. And by maybe I mean that this is exactly what I am going to be doing. Time to watch the Book Thief after all.

11.22.63: Episode 1

I've been a huge fan of Stephen King for a long time now. He's written it, chances are I have read it. My obsession started when I was back in the third or fourth grade. I went to a small, conservative, Lutheran K-8 grade school. Suffice it to say the teachers were not very happy when they saw me reading a Sai King novel during silent study time. Despite every attempt to reform me and turn me from my evil ways, I resisted. Not only did I not stop reading the works of Stephen King, but the school's stubborn stance on not allowing me to read his works in class only strengthened my resolve to read more.

One by one I devoured his works, falling in love with his characters, his stories, and his unique style of writing. Misery, The Dead Zone, The Stand, Cujo, Needful Things, It, The Dark Half, The Gunslinger... the list went on and on. In his forewords where he'd address the Constant Reader, I always got the impression he was speaking to me specifically. My interest in his work was no passing phase either. Over 20 years later, I am still an avid fan. I've reread most of his books more times than I can count. My personal favorite: The Dark Tower series. I've read through the series five times, and could easily pick it up now and make it six. I love it.

To my knowledge there is only one book of his which I have not read. It's called Blaze, and it was written by Sai King under his old pen name of Richard Bachman. I've been wanting to pick up that book for a while now and read the hell out of it. Just to say I've read every in print novel that my favorite author has written. At the same time, I will be sad when I read it. I'm sure he'll come out with plenty of new books in the future, but for the time being I will have read everything there is to read from him. So despite owning the book for several years now, I keep putting my reading of it off. And off. And off.

One of my favorite recent books from Mr King is titled 11/22/63. If you just glance at the summary of the novel, you may think it sounds a little goofy. A man goes back in time to save JFK? How silly, right?

Wrong. This novel is so much more than that. It's not a horror story. Casual fans think that everything the man writes has to be scary. Which it doesn't. This book instantly grabbed me with its sense of wonder and mystery. Ten pages in, I was hooked. In addition to the horror genre, I love sci-fi. Time travel stories are perhaps my favorite genre of them all. So this was right up my alley. Plus- I'm not a big sappy romance person, but if something happens to have a love story that makes me cry, I won't object to it. I'm a relatively emotionless and detached person, so if something can really hit that special cord with me and crack that shell I've built around my emotions, I'll remember it. And love it for that.

11/22/63 was a great combination of many different things I love. It took my love of sci-fi (time travel... yes...) and combined it with a great mystery with great characters. Throw in a little bit of romance and a little bit of history, mash it all up and you get one hell of a story from my favorite author of all time.

If I had to rank this among my all time King novels, it would definitely be top five. I don't know if I could arrange those top five in proper order and pick a favorite, but I do feel safe saying this would be right up there.

When I heard that they were making 11/22/63 into a miniseries, I was excited. I'm sure a lot of people had mixed reactions. If this sucks, it will totally ruin the book. I don't feel that way though. The book will always be great. The book will always be there when I want to read it. Just because it exists in movie or miniseries form doesn't diminish the book's accomplishments in any way whatsoever. Even if the miniseries does suck. I was very curious to see what they'd do with it.

As ka would have it, I recently discovered that I could play Hulu on my PlayStation 3. I had been paying for the service for over a year, but it played like crap on my Wii and would constantly freeze up or buffer every minute or so when trying to watch something. It was horrendous and completely unwatchable. I urged my wife many times to cancel it, but she never did.

Months and months passed. We paid for Hulu, but it went unwatched. Netflix was where it was at. Randomly I decided OK I am going to try Hulu on my PlayStation 3 and see if it works better on this console. Lo and behold: it works like a charm on the PS3. And will you look at this - I set it up just in time. 11.22.63 the miniseries would be starting in two weeks. As excited as I originally had been over the miniseries, I was resigned to the fact I'd have to wait for the DVD or download it (legally!) somehow since I wouldn't be able to watch Hulu. But all the pieces fell into place. Call it coincidence or call it ka, but I had rejoined Hulu a mere two weeks before this miniseries was to start. Maybe it was even 19 days...

I've only read the book once, and that was several years ago when it first came out. I don't even remember the characters' names anymore. All I remember is the basic plot of the story and what happened throughout the course of the book. Nothing specific, however. I read a lot of different books so my brain can't really retain a lot of information from one single book unless I read it multiple times. Which I have not with this.

I occasionally write blogs, but never anything too serious. Mainly video game reviews and talking about what TV shows I happen to be watching at the moment. Since I loved the book so much, I figured I'd write up a little blog entry (although this is turning out to already be MUCH longer than I had anticipated) for each episode of the miniseries.

Be forewarned: like I said I don't remember a lot of specifics about the book. So this miniseries could potentially change a LOT of things and likely I won't notice these things or remember what is "supposed to" happen. How I plan to do this is to watch up to each little commercial break, pause the show, and then write up a small recap on each segment of the show. At the end I will probably post my thoughts on the episode as a whole and tell you whether I liked it or not. Depending on if anyone actually reads this thing, I may do this for all eight episodes when they are eventually released.

I guess... we'll start. I've wasted enough of your time with my rambling already. You clicked on this to see my thoughts on the show, and now it is time to get down to business.

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Well, we hit our first commercial break around the 25 minute mark of the show. I must say that so far I am very impressed. Despite the time traveling subject material, the show has a very grounded and realistic feel to it. Even if I had never read the book, I think I'd still be very interested to see where this show is going to go.

As I mentioned earlier, it has been a few years since I've read the book. From what I've seen so far, it seems to be doing an admirable job staying true to the source material. James Franco plays the main character, Jake Epping, a high school teacher in the middle of going through a divorce.

At night he teaches a writing class for adults. He is particularly impressed by a story written by Harry, the socially awkward school janitor. In the story, his entire family is killed by his psychotic father and he is the only one left alive. Whether or not this is based on a true story or is entirely a work of fiction is not explained. But by the tone in Harry's voice as he reads the story aloud to the class, you get the feeling that this is something that actually happened to him as a kid.

Jake meets his wife at a small diner, and divorce papers are quickly signed and handed over. Jake puts on a cool facade while saying goodbye to the woman he used to (and maybe still does) love, but you can tell it is troubling him on the inside. The owner of the diner, Al, disappears into the back during the signing of these papers, and when he returns he seems to be violently ill.

Jake is of course very concerned about Al's health. Al tells him it is cancer, which confuses Jake immensely. He was fine just a few minutes ago. How could he have gotten cancer and be suffering its effects in five minutes? Al takes him into the back of the restaurant and tells Jake to enter the store room. All would be explained there.

Jake begrudgingly enters the store room and emerges into.... the past. 1960, to be exact. Milkmen, antique cars blasting old music on their radios, well dressed people out and about - actually socializing and having fun with one another. Freaked out, Jake returns to the diner. He can hardly believe his eyes, so Al sends him back out with a knife to carve his name into a tree. Tells him to come back when he's done and check it out. Jake follows Al's directions. A homeless man harasses Jake that he is not supposed to be there. He had accosted Jake on his first trip into the past, but this time he seems especially agitated. Even if I hadn't read the book, I would know that this is a potential situation to keep an eye on. When he returns to the present - sure enough, what he has carved remains engraved in the tree. But aged.

Al proposes to Jake that Jake go back through the rift and hang out in the past for a couple of years and do whatever it takes to save JFK from being assassinated. Al would do it himself, but his health is failing him too quickly. Jake does not seem receptive to this at first, but Al shows Jake a bundle of money from the past he has saved for the occasion, fake identification, as well as a list of sports outcomes which Jake can gamble on and build himself a respectable nest egg.

Still unconvinced, Jake returns home to think on all that has happened on this crazy day in his life. Al is furious with Jake for not going back immediately. Relax guy! Give him at least a little bit of time to think on all this. Obviously Jake realizes that he has been involved in something special and will want to go back again. But to tell him to go back and save Kennedy right off the bat seems to be pushing things a little too hard, too fast.

Jake returns the next day to find Al dead in his home. Guess that explains Al's sense of urgency regarding the situation! Apparently seeing Al's dead body has changed Jake's view on the situation. He hurries off to the diner to head back in time. Has he gone back to stay and save Kennedy, or is this just an exploratory expedition? We shall have to wait and find out.

After a second commercial break, we return to the action. Realizing with his T-shirt and scruffly facial hair that he looks out of place, Jake gets a haircut and a change of clothes so he can blend in. Despite Al's previous warning to get a low maintenance and inconspicuous vehicle, Jake splurges and gets a flashy yellow sports car. Already nearly drained of his resources, he heads to a seedy bar to place a 35 to 1 wager on a boxing match. Obviously he knows the results of the match ahead of time, and wins big.

The goons at the bar seem pissed that he is making off with $3500 and intimidate him on his way out. Jake leaves and heads to a motel to stay the night. But with his flashy car parked outside, one of the goons finds him and enters his hotel room to beat him up and take the money back. Luckily Jake has the foresight to set his cell phone on the bed while playing a funny music video. This distracts the goon, and Jake clobbers him from behind and takes off. Tearing out of the parking lot, he nearly hits the homeless man (from this point on to be referred to as the Yellow Card Man because of the yellow card sticking out of his hat) from before. Yup, something is definitely going on with that guy.

Jake heads across the country on a road trip to Dallas, taking in the sights and the sounds of the 60's. Upon arriving in Dallas, he rents a room at a boarding house owned by a mother and her son. Exploring Dallas, Jake meets an attractive young blonde woman named Sadie. You can tell he is smitten by her, and nearly makes a large blunder referencing a movie that hasn't been made yet while chatting with Sadie. Unfortunately for Jake, Sadie's husband shows up and takes her away, presumably out of his life for good. We'll be seeing more of Sadie in the future, however. I can guarantee you that.

Jake recalls a conversation he had with Al the night before he left. Al had told him that if he tried to mess too hard with the past, the past would mess with him in return. I don't know what Jake is thinking, but he tries to call his father from a pay phone. His father would only be a child at the time, so again - I don't know what he was trying to accomplish. But the line goes fuzzy and the call is not allowed to connect. Jake hangs up and begins to leave. He gets about ten feet or so from the phone booth before he turns around, presumably to try the call again.

An out of control car nails the phone booth and flips over in the street. Jake rushes to the car and sees a woman sprawled out on the ground with a major head injury.

"You aren't supposed to be here."

Well, shit. Mess with the past, the past messes with you. If a simple phone call can cause this, imagine what altering history to save JFK will do.

In his quest to save JFK, Jake follows up a lead on some Russian guy named George. Apparently George was under suspicion for having ties to Lee Harvey Oswald. If Jake can connect the two, maybe even see if George is somehow connected with the CIA (as rumored) he will have somewhere to go with his investigation. He tails George to one of JFK's political rallies, and follows him at the end of the rally when George gets up to leave. Unfortunately George wanders into an area that Jake is not authorized to be in. When he is spotted and called out by security, he decides to run.

Probably not a great idea. Jake runs into the bowels of the building and experiences some nightmare hallucinations of the Yellow Card Man and a large group of beetles that converge on him. Right when he begins to panic and tries to leave, he is knocked out from behind.

Upon awakening, Jake plays the role of a rabid, frothing JFK fanatic who had only wanted to get close to the man to shake his hand. Apparently his captors believe him, and set him free without an arrest.

Jake follows up on another old lead from Al. George had attended a dinner that night, and supposedly had met with the CIA there. Al had attempted to get close to the action during his trip to the past, but an accident set him on fire before he could find out who George was meeting, and he had to be rushed to the emergency room. Jake avoids the fiery accident, even avoids a falling chandelier. The past really doesn't want him to find out what happened!

But eventually Jake gets to his table and watches the meeting unfold. He struggles to listen to what they are saying, but he is only able to make out three words: Lee Harvey Oswald. After confirming that the men are indeed CIA, Jake is ecstatic. He returns to his apartment, giddy with excitement. The excitement is soon cut short when he sees that the building has burned down, the young boy who was living there with his mother dead. Another result of his meddling with the past?

Jake is able to salvage a few of his notes from the burned building, but for the most part they are completely ruined.

Distraught, Jake decides to pack up and head for home. It's on his way back that he recalls the story old janitor Harry had submitted for his nighttime writing class. About how his father had gone crazy and killed his entire family with a hammer. Jake may not be able to stop the Kennedy assassination, but he may be able to stop the murders from happening.

Jake heads to Kentucky and parks outside Harry's home. He sees the dad come home and welcome the family warmly, but the look on Jake's face tells us that he still knows what he has to do before he heads home.

The episode ends.

Ahh, way to leave us wanting more! I'm sure that's the point though. Will Jake kill Harry's dad before he can harm his family? Will the past intervene? If he succeeds, what will the effect be on the future (our present)? What if he doesn't succeed? Even having read the book, I can't really remember what happened. This was at least four or five years ago that I read it, and I read multiple books a week. My memory is not great. I still wanted to continue watching. I have a really short attention span, so kudos to the show for being able to keep my attention for such a long episode, and leave me wanting more. That's a sign that it must be good.

So yes. I really liked this episode. It stayed relatively true to the source material. Sure there were some changes. In particular I remember the root beer float scene from one of Jake's early trips being left out. Travesty! OK, not really.

I'm sure there were some other changes to the time line and the order of things. Probably some minor things left out, some other minor things added for dramatic effect. Nothing that altered the story too much.

Being a long time King fan of both his books and the movies and TV series based off of his books, I can definitely say that this is one of the best adaptations of his work to date. It seems my nervous feelings of whether or not they could do the source material justice were ill founded. I can't wait to see more of this show!

And since it has been so long since I have read this book, the show has made me want to go back and read it again. Do I do it now, or do I wait until the run of this series ends? Questions, questions.

But yeah. This was really good. I'd recommend it to anyone, King fan or King hater.

I approve.

Video Game Review: Dynamite Headdy

Dynamite Headdy

Sega Genesis

I find myself in a predicament this particular review. The same predicament I found myself in with my last game review (Smash TV, if you are keeping track). See, I am always eager to recommend to people the classic games that I grew up playing. When other people recommend their classic games to me, as Dynamite Headdy was recommended to me, I always try to keep an open mind and give them a fair shot.

But growing up playing a game is one thing. Going back at the age of 33 and playing "classic" games that I somehow missed is another. I didn't particularly care for Smash TV, and I am not quite sure how I feel about this game either. I found myself torn between liking this game and hating it with a passion. I'll tell you what its about first before I get too into my feelings on the matter.

This is a 2D side scrolling game where you star as a loveable puppet creature named Headdy. Headdy attacks by throwing his head at enemies. He also uses his head as a grappling hook of sorts to latch on to items and launch himself to new heights. Over the course of the game you pick up different heads which each have different powers. Some heads launch projectiles that home in on your enemies. Some heads shrink you. Some give you extra speed. Some give you a shield. The list goes on and on. There are a lot of different heads you can find and play with on your journey.

Don't even ask me what the story of this game is about. There is no text, no subtitles. You watch a cutscene when the game begins, but it doesn't explain anything at all. It is really Japanese, really crazy. It doesn't appear to make a whole lot of sense. I did Google the story line to see what was going on, but it didn't seem to match up at all with what I observed while playing this game. I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway. You don't really play games like this for their story line.

Controls are pretty basic. With the exception of the control pad, you only use 3 buttons. Shoot, jump, and revert back to your normal head. The game controls well for the most part, but I did find myself getting frustrated in parts (more on this later).

We'll start with the things the game does right. I'm not sure exactly when this game came out, but judging by its cover art, it looks like it came out near the end of the system's life span. You can tell that a lot of hard work was put into this game. Visually, it shares a lot of common traits with some of the all time Genesis greats, such as Sonic and Knuckles and Vectorman. In fact, it may even top them. This could very well be the most vibrant and colorful Genesis game I have ever played.

The sound effects and music aren't bad either. I mentioned how this game shared some visual traits with Sonic and Vectorman, and I swear it shares some of the same sound effects as well. There were a few points in the game where I was like "I know that sound effect!" Maybe I was mistaken, but I don't think so. The music for the game is very well done. Some of these songs sound like they would fit right at home in a Sonic game, and that is not a bad thing at all. Well, unless you're talking about Sonic R.

So stylistically, the game is great. Top notch visuals, top notch audio. Fun concept. We're off to a good start.

Now we'll get to what I didn't like about the game.

I absolutely have to start with the game's steep learning curve. I don't know how many games out there I actually died during the training stages, but this was one of them. Definite foreshadowing there. This game requires you to be an expert right from the very beginning. This is for sure a very unique game, so I bet that no one out there was able to pick it up right away and master it from the beginning. I am usually that kind of player, but that did not happen here.

This is one of the most cruel and unforgiving games I have ever played. The game starts you off with three lives. You can earn extra lives as you play the game, but you don't get the chance to snare many. You also don't get any continues. And there is no save option. If you die, you have to start from the beginning. I played this version of the game on the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PlayStation 3. This disc allows you to manually save your progress on any of its games. I am extremely fortunate to have this version of the game, because if I had been playing the original Genesis version where you had to start from the beginning every time you died, I would have never finished this game.

This game is so hard, I found myself not only saving after every stage, but sometimes in the middle of a stage after making it past a particularly hard part. Heck, sometimes even in the middle of a boss fight!

It took me three nights to beat this game. The first night, I played and didn't save at all. I just wanted to learn the basics and prepare myself so I knew what to expect when I decided to start playing it for real. The second night, I tried to beat the game, but failed miserably. I saved after every level, but soon found myself at a point in the game where I had no lives left and my last save took place with only half a health gauge left. And I still had several levels left. There was no way I could have beaten the game in that sorry state.

The third night I played, I set out to conquer this game once and for all. I micromanaged everything. Saved after every level, saved in the middle of levels. If I died, I would load my last save up and try again. I knew that if I wanted a chance to beat this game, I had to be PERFECT. And even doing it this way, I still almost failed in completing the game. I can't even comprehend beating this game on the Genesis without this save option. I would have torn all my hair out trying.

Being difficult is one thing, being brutal and unfair is another. And this game is definitely brutal and unfair. You all know the type of game I'm talking about. Cheap deaths out of nowhere. Enemies that swarm you from all angles and knock you off platforms or right into spike traps. Bosses that follow predictable patterns but then break that pattern when you are on your last sliver of health, which allows them to kill you and totallty fuck you over right when you are on the brink of victory.

As I mentioned earlier, the game controls well for the most part. But when you are trying to shoot at an angle, sometimes the game fails you. The jumping and especially the grapple mechanism is flawed and "off" at times. Also, your character can only shoot in the direction he's facing. There is a particular boss that chases you and you have to fire at him behind you while still running forward to avoid damage. This is incredibly frustrating because Headdy never seems to do what you want him to do here. The game controls well when you move along slowly. When things get frantic and you have to react quickly and move back and forth in multiple directions at a rapid clip, things aren't so pretty. The game is tough enough as it is, the controls add to it that particular controlling chucking extra bit of frustration.

The game is a decent length for a platforming game. If you play it through in one sitting and manage to not die while completing the game, it can probably be beaten in about two hours. If you play and die and have to start from the beginning multiple times, who knows how long this can take to complete? It took me about five or six hours to beat on my third day play through, and that's not even counting the time I spent playing on the first and second days. I can imagine it must take weeks, maybe even months to beat this game if you are playing on the Genesis console and can't save.

The game does try to do a few things differently, and I have to give it props for that. Aside from the traditional sidescrolling levels, there are bonus levels where you have to knock basketballs through a series of hoops. There are flying levels that remind me of classic old-school shooters. Some of the boss stages are extremely clever and require unique strategies to defeat. And my particular favorite game wrinkle is a stage that has tilting platforms that actually allow you to move your character up and down as well as left and right. Its almost like a 3D platformer for that one level, and I found it pretty cool.

So all in all, I find this to be a game I really wanted to like. Great visuals, great music and sound effects. I enjoyed the variety of the game, all the things it tried to do differently to stand out from the crowd. But the punishing difficulty and the gimmicky controls really brought it down for me. I'm right on the middle of the fence, and I think right on the middle of the fence is where I am going to stay. I can see why some of the people who love the game love it, and I can see why some would hate it. I can't really pick a side, so I am taking the easy way out and giving it the most mediocre grade I can think of. You should know what is coming.

Overall:

C

Video Game Review: Smash TV

Smash TV

Arcade

Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I played a ton of classic video games. I still play many of these games to this day, and recommend them to anyone who will listen to me. But I often wonder what people feel about those games who didn't grow up playing them. Young kids in their teens and early twenties. Do they think those games suck, because they don't have great graphics? Are the games too simple for them, too primitive looking? Is it possible that they would view with scorn a classic title like Mario 3 or Castlevania as something out of the stone age and not give it a chance, similar to the way I would look at a silent movie in today's age?

I know that the main appeal of classic games for me is the memories I made playing these games as a kid. That's why I always try to include a few of those memories at the beginning of each blog entry I post. But if I didn't grow up playing these games and didn't have those sentimental feelings attached, would I still like them?

That is the question that is posed to me as I review Smash TV. I know that many people consider this to be a classic game. It came out in 1990 and has developed a big cult following in the ensuing years. Nearly everyone who grew up playing this game sings it praises. No doubt that for a lot of people who played this in the arcades back in 1990, Smash TV definitely still carries a lot of sentimental value.

But I had never played this game in the arcade. Never played it on a home console. Sure, I had heard about Smash TV and had been familiar with the concept, but somehow the game had passed me by. Now here we sit in the year 2016, 26 years since Smash TV first came out. After all of these years, I finally got the chance to play the game for the first time.

The version I played is for PlayStation 2, on a disc called Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits (or something of that nature). This is a direct port of the arcade version, so I am counting it as an arcade game rather than a PS2 game.

There isn't a whole lot of story here. The game is set in the distant future of 1999 (lol). Game shows are all the rage in the world, especially game shows featuring copious amounts of violence and death. Smash TV is the world's most popular show. Contestants are put in an arena and forced to gun down their opposition to get such sparkling rewards like money, vacations and brand new VCRs! If you have ever seen the movie the Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger, this game's vibe is similar to the movie's.

Smash TV is a shooter that takes place from an over the top perspective. You only need two buttons to play this game, and they are not even really buttons. They are the two analog sticks on your controller (or two joysticks if you are playing this in the arcade). The left one controls player movement, the right controls in which direction you fire your weapons.

Expect mass carnage here. You walk around, you shoot your enemies, you collect prizes and weapon upgrades left in your enemies' wake. The first few rooms you enter are fairly easy to complete as to get you used to the flow of the game. After that, expect to die. Expect to die a LOT. The game throws too many enemies at you to count. From above, from below. From left, from right - you are constantly getting swarmed in this game. Not only are enemies swarming you from all angles, but you get enemies that hang out on the fringes of the level and fire at you relentlessly. There is no safe haven in this game.

Even if you think you are really good at video games (which I did, coming in) this game will quickly humble you. It seems like no matter what strategy you utilize, how quickly you manage to take your enemies out, you still can't avoid getting killed in this game. I consider it lucky to last more than 30 seconds before something hits me and takes me out. Luckily this is a "free play" version of the game, and I was not saddled with a certain number of lives or continues. To those who played this in the arcade, I can't even begin to imagine how many quarters it would take to beat this game. I was just getting slammed. I had to have continued at least fifty times. Probably more.

The game takes place over three or four main stages, and each stage is comprised of a number of rooms. You must completely clear each room before you can move on to the next. This game offers a little bit of variety by giving you a choice as to which room you can enter next. Each stage has many different paths you can follow but each path arrives at the same destination. So really, every time you play you can take a different path and get a slightly different gaming experience.

Even so, there is not much variety in the game play itself. You run, you shoot, you die. The game is very repetitive. At least the weapons are varied. You can pick up all different kinds of weapons, from spread guns to grenade launchers, to protective drones that encircle you and fire at your enemies.

Visually the game isn't much to look at by today's standards. The characters are small and don't have much detail. A lot of the enemies all kind of look the same. At least there is some variety in the stages. Each one has a unique feel and design. A lot of the rooms look the same, but each stage definitely has its own theme and personality.

Each stage ends in a boss battle. These bosses are all quite hard, but that is to be expected here. Visually, the bosses have to be the highlight of the game. They are all big, all detailed, they are all quirky and look like a lot of fun. Most bosses have weak points which will flash white when you shoot them. And a lot of bosses can only be hurt by special weapons. Dole out enough damage, and you defeat the boss and move on to the next stage. Most of these battles are just a war of attrition. You know you are going to die, and there isn't much you can do to stop it. So you just respawn, grab a weapon, and fire away until you die again. I've said it before and I will say it one more time, I simply can't even fathom how much it would have cost to beat the game in the arcade. Each boss alone probably took several dollars to destroy.

As the game went on, I started to get sick of it. I know it was probably a lot of fun to play in the arcades. You'd have a group of kids standing around the machine, each person looking to jump in when someone would run out of quarters. Cheering, jeering, excitement in the air. Playing it at home by myself however, I found the game to be extremely repetitive. With all the dying and respawning and dying again, I didn't find much strategy involved in the game play. It did not seem to matter what I did or how good I usually am at games, each stage started to feel like a broken record. There is no strategy other than killing as much as you can before dying and coming back and repeating the pattern over and over again.

I'd say about halfway through the game I began to think to myself "is this over yet? How much longer is this?" It is a fun concept, and I am sure I would have had a much better time playing it in an arcade, or even playing the home version with a friend. But as a standalone single player game, I really wasn't feeling it. I mean, I liked it for a little while. But then reality set in and I realized that this was as good as the game was going to get.

I finished it, just for the sake of finishing it so I could write the review. I didn't particularly enjoy myself, but it is not like I hated the game either. This game brought to my mind the question I raised at the beginning of this blog entry.

Everyone says this game is a great classic. But I, having never played the game, didn't like it as much. It's still the same game that people fell in love with back in the early 90's, but because I didn't play it back then I don't carry sentimental feelings for the game as I am sure a lot of people do who DID grow up playing this game.

It proves just how important these sentimental feelings are when talking about classic video games. I am sure if I had grown up playing this game, I would say it is awesome and give it an A plus and completely ignore all of its faults. But because I didn't, I think the game is just okay. I slogged through it, beat it, and probably won't play it again ever in my life. Unless I run across someone who wants to play this in two player mode. I am sure the game is more enjoyable with a friend.

But alas, I have to judge this game based on its single player experience. It doesn't have a great story line, the game play is incredibly repetitive, and there is basically zero strategy involved in playing this game. I'm willing to give it the benefit of a doubt. I'm sure it was fun in the arcade, I am sure it is fun playing with a friend, I am sure it is fun if you grew up on the game and have a lot of fun memories with it. But as a stand alone experience for someone who had never played the game before, I found it to be mediocre. And that is how I have to judge it here.

Overall:

C-

Special guest video game review: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

PlayStation

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to present to you a special guest video game review! You may remember Almightywisk from his other guest review of Parasite Eve. His additions to this blog are always great and I highly encourage guest entries. I would make this a co-review, but I shamefully admit that I have yet to play Symphony of the Night. It is on my to do list since I hear from everyone how amazing it is. What does Wisk think of the game? Read on and see....

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Greetings bloggers, I, Almightywisk, come from the depths of my hobbit hole. Dan has once again summoned me because his laziness knows no bounds in regards to reviewing games. It's time to delve into the heart of darkness, because today is the review of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. 

I did not get my hands on this game until a year after it was released because there was no major marketing for it, no commercials, just a gem waiting to be found in a library of already good games. I stumbled onto this game when I went to a friends house in 8th grade, his mom let me in and as I was walking upstairs the first thing I heard was the music, and it was amazing. I walked into his room and I saw a character on screen that had an after image as he was running, I thought it was a spell at first, turns out that's just how the character model was created. I was instantly mesmerized.

I asked him what game he was playing, he told me Symphony of the Night. I had no idea it was Castlevania. He went to save his game and reset it. A new game was started just for little old me and he hands me the controller and I'm introduced to some text and BOOM! I am playing as Richter Belmont. I realize that I'm playing Castlevania, and I start at a red staircase with no option to go back. I naturally follow and not but a good 10 seconds of walking, I am in Dracula's throne room. 

The dialogue and voice acting are so corny that it's good, it's memorable. The lines spoken by Dracula in this scene are now internet famous. "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" and "Enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!". I am scared, naturally, I'm fighting Dracula with no knowledge of the game and it's the same patterns as the original Castlevania - beat the first form, and then here comes the monster second form. Naturally I was not prepared for this and I die, but to my surprise I'm not dead. An animation comes from the side of the screen, it's a girl who screams "Richter show them your strength" and I get revived, not only revived but unkillable. I finish the fight with Dracula and then the game shows a cutscene.

After Dracula's defeat the Castle is still there, so enter a cutscene of some guy running through the woods and he jumps the drawbridge and you gain control of him. This was the character my friend was playing as. I hit the start button and a menu pops up, The characters name is Alucard, and I'm laughing a bit and my friend asks what's so funny, I tell him I'm a bit of a Castlevania nerd and most people didn't know that in Castlevania 3, he's a playable character after you beat him. Plus Alucard is just Dracula backwards. My first experience with this game was a memorable one. With that info, lets move onto the review shall we?

The story is pretty creative, you start off looking to just kill Dracula, but as the game progresses you learn there is more to the story than originally suspected. You run into a character named Maria, who is looking for Richter Belmont, the very same Richter who fought Dracula at the beginning of the game. It turns out that fight was 5 years ago and since then he has gone missing. Alucard, not really concerned says he will keep an eye out, as he progresses through the castle he has numerous run ins with Maria and it's the same story, she has had no luck finding him and neither has Alucard. 

A portion of the game consists of you going to a Colisseum under the castle, There you see Richter Belmont in the background watching from the stands, claiming he is the lord of this castle. A boss fight ensues with a monster he summons and when it's over he is gone.  Exploration becomes pivotal to the plot and affects the ending. There's an area where you find Maria claiming she is about to lose hope when Alucard tells her that he found him in the castle and that it seems he has fallen to darkness. The final meeting with her is in a secret room where she gives you a special item to save Richter. You eventually make your way to where Richter fought Dracula and there he is in his throne room claiming that the fight between vampires and vampire hunters will go on forever as long as he controls the castle. The final battle begins and it's against the Belmont lineage, or is it? You have a choice here, if you didn't get the special item Maria gave you, you are forced to kill Richter Belmont and get the bad ending of the game, and the game itself will end. However, If you equip the special item she gave you, you learn that Richter is being controlled by a minion of Dracula and must slay that.  

If you chose to slay the demon controlling Richter, a new portion of the game opens up to you and it's an inverted version of the castle you just explored, and the difficulty ramps up. This is where you play the game, it's a whole new version of this castle that needs to be explored, new items to be found, new relics to use, and no major story besides a brief run in with death complimenting you on making it that far. This is where you gear up for the final battle against Dracula. 

You all have read the a summary of the game, let's get down to brass tacks, the main protagonist is Alucard Tepes, the son of Count Dracula, half human half Vampire. The game plays like the other Castlevanias, side scroller/platformer and a little bit of RPG element. Hit the pause button you are shown a menu with stats/relics/equipment/familiars/spells. Naturally you want to see what you're equipped with, and you know it's high level gear, all the gear you have is named after you. It gives you these ridiculous stats, and naturally everything is empty, you just started the game. You progress through the first few screens and it's very Castlevania; ghouls, zombies, wolves, mermen bats. The first thing you notice is the awesome animation of Alucard, when he runs there is an after image of him that is just appealing, you feel faster, and secondly you have a sword. There is no whip. The game entices you to play, especially as it's set up to level you up in the first 2 minutes you are hacking and slashing enemies, the game freezes for half a second, your character glows and a little chime plays and it just makes you feel lik

e a badass knowing you are getting stronger. 

While you progress from the courtyard and into the castle, the background scenery is just hauntingly terrifying and amazing, windows, lightning, the works, just as you are getting used to everything you move into the next screen and are treated to a cutscene of Death and Alucard exchanging words; Death telling Alucard to stop his journey to stop his father, Alucard declining. And then the game just pulls a dick move, Death takes your gear, just ups and takes your high level weapons and armor and flies off. You are now punching. It's alright though the game quickly drops a short sword from a skeleton for you to arm yourself with, but from here on out, the choices you make are on you. 

Armed with only a short sword and no clue where to go, I set out to explore and the first place to go was up, might as well, A red door in front of me and I enter the Alchemy Labratory, the game gets hard to explain here since it's nowhere near linear but as I traverse the labratory I stumble on a relic (which are special items in the game to collect that give you special abilities and skills) and the first you find in the wide open is the cube of zoe which allows you to collect hearts and items from the candles. While traveling and fumbling through this area I ended up with some armor as well and finally found  a save room, which restores your HP and magic. Luckily the game is kind enough to leave a save room within earshot of a boss room, because I had no idea that i was about to stumble on my first boss.

The first boss is a pair of enemies, Gaibon and Slorga. Gaibon is a Gargoyle type enemy that shoots flame balls and flies around, Slorga is an undead bird with a spear  that if you end up knocking up with a special weapon, is caught by Gaibon and drops Slorga on your head with the spear. It's a really creative fight. When you do enough damage to Gaibon he turns red and the little flame balls become giant and more frequent, so focus on Slorga first so you don't have to deal with a pissed off gargoyle.  With the fight over, naturally you get a level up and an item appears, which is usually a  HP max or Heart Max. This game sets you up for success as long as you pay attention, After a boss fight, somewhere in the next few screens there is a special item waiting for you somewhere, whether it be armor or relic, always pay attention. 

After the alchemy lab, from here on out it all depends on you, you are free to explore this vast castle, a few blockades are put up for your protection so you don't stumble into the wrong area at too low a level. Each section of the castle minus the "Outside Wall" has a boss and an item for you to collect alone with numerous items hidden in walls, even full rooms in walls. You have a gist of how the game is played lets discuss a tad more of the RPG element.

Like any RPG you gain levels through destroying enemies, enemies drop equipment some rare and some not so rare. In my playthrough I happened to get a few extremely rare items including "Axelord Armor" and a "Medusa Shield". These items are extremely rare drops. The Medusa Shield turns enemies into stone when it's out and being used, and the sprite for it is literally a medusa head. The Axelord armor is extremely defensive. A nice little addition used are familiars. Hidden through the second half of the game are cards that allow you to summon special creatures to follow you and help you: A Faerie, Demon, Ghost, Sword, and a Bat.  The familiars level up as well,  which actually makes them more intelligent and more capable to use in battle. I used the sword most of the way through and I ended my run at Level 60, and my familiar at level 37. 

All in all, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night still holds up. The game has everything a gamer needs, between the open world exploration, the challenge of each individual area, the unique bosses and enemies, the amazing soundtrack and the fact you had to WORK for the story... you had to explore to make sure you got all the pieces of the puzzle. This game stood the test of time and I was glad to pick it up again. What kept me involved was the story, I wanted to find out what happened to the Belmont lineage, why Richter was doing this. My score?

Overall:

A+

Video Game Review: Castlevania

Castlevania

Nintendo Entertainment System

What an iconic game. I come into this review knowing without a doubt that it will get an A+. I'm trying to be fair and entertain the idea that it might not get a perfect grade, but Castlevania holds such great memories for me. It's gonna get an A+.

Castlevania has been a part of my life almost as long as I have memories. I recall as a young kid about 6 years old going to the store with my mom and my brother, looking for a new video game. We had just gotten a Nintendo Entertainment System the previous Christmas. Our library was definitely lacking in games, however. It was July, and I don't think we had gotten any new games since we received the system for Christmas. We were starting to get sick of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. It was our birthday month so our mom wanted to kill two birds with one stone and let us each pick out whatever game we wanted.

I picked Castlevania, knowing nothing about the game other than that the cover looked cool. My brother got Blaster Master because he liked the name. Both great games, but I totally think I won that birthday.

Looking back at my early years playing this game, I mainly remember this game being HARD. I am not quite sure if I ever actually completed it as a kid. If I did, it was several years after I first got the game. I had a friend who lived across the street from me named Brian, and he also had Castlevania. We would play and play and play but we could never make it past the boss battle where you have to fight two mummies.

One day I came over to his house and he was so jubilant. I wanted to know what was up, and he said that his dad had played the game and beaten the mummies. When he beat them, Simon fell through the earth, down and down and down and down into this giant underground cavern. It sounded amazing! I wished I'd been there to see it.

From my experience older people weren't any good at games, but this kid's dad had accomplished what neither of us could. I was seriously impressed. And I became very dedicated to beating these damn mummies once and for all and seeing this underground cavern by myself.

Which I did.... eventually.

I really don't remember much of what happened after that. I know I pumped some SERIOUS hours into this game. But I really don't think I ever actually beat Dracula for a long, long time. I had a hard enough time getting past the Grim Reaper, who annihilated me nearly every time I'd play. Everyone sucked against the Reaper. My brother, my uncles, my friend Brian. I think my uncles finally beat him by getting a boomerang times three and pummeling him with it so he couldn't move and send his endless supply of sickles after you.

That became my strategy as well. My unsuccessful strategy, I may add. Most of the time I would die before getting to him, erasing my times three and my special item. I'd have to beat him with just my whip and a single item - and that never went well. But I'd say one in every ten times I played the game I'd somehow scrape by him.

The first time was with, you guessed it, my friend Brian. We had played the game so freaking much, we were shocked to beat him and be moving into uncharted territory. We never made it past the bridge with the giant bats, however. At least not while playing with one another. We tried a countless number of times, but failed miserably each and every time. But still, it was very exciting new ground.

To this day whenever I play Castlevania I still try to save up the boomerang times three for the Grim Reaper. I still dread the bridge with the bats, the clock tower with the little jumping monkey things. But most of all I dread Dracula. I hate that mother fucker.

Oh, how he tormented me as a kid. All those hours, all those days, all those years (?) I pumped into this game and he owned my ass every time. I know I had to have beaten the game at least one time as a kid, but considering how often I'd play Castlevania, one time seems an absurdly low number. And I was good at games for my age too!

I still dread Dracula. I know I can make it to the end of the game, that's not a question. If I got this game when I was 6, that means I've been playing Castlevania for 27 years of my life. I know the game inside and out. But that fucking Dracula, man....

Enough with the trip down memory lane. Time to get on to the actual review. I just couldn't help myself, I have SUCH a strong history with the game. Since I don't really have anyone to talk about it with, I figured I'd share it here and immortalize my memories on the interwebs. Well done, Dan. Well done.

How does the game hold up to today's standards? Pretty well actually, considering the game is nearly 30 years old. The graphics aren't fantastic by any means, but like I said, considering its age it looks phenomenal. The music is great too. It's a simple score, but its tunes are catchy and lend even more personality to an already personality packed game.

There really is no story line to speak of. Maybe there is a little something they put in the instruction manual, but I lost that years ago. But it becomes pretty obvious that the story doesn't really matter here. You are here to kill Dracula, and that's all you need to know.

The game starts off with your character entering a mysterious gate which leads to a foreboding castle. The opening area of the game is devoid of enemies, perhaps to get you acquainted to the game's controls. The controls are very simple. You walk, you strike with your whip, and you jump. Over time, you get control of special items like daggers, axes, holy water, and boomerangs, which you can throw by pressing up and the attack button.

Items can mainly be received by whipping various candelabras you find throughout the game. You will find more than just simple attack items. You get hearts, which allow you to fire more items, along with other things like treasures and bags of money that add to your game's score. And of course, the ever important whip extensions which make your whip's reach longer and its effects more deadly to your enemies. Items are also found hidden randomly throughout the game as well. Certain bricks you can whip to reveal secrets like health upgrades and items that allow you to double or triple the amount of special weapons you can use at a time. These definitely come in handy for some of the boss battles in the game.

Your enemies come in all shapes and sizes. You got weird streaking ghost lady things, dogs, fish men, skeletons who dance around throwing bones at you, flying medusa heads, bats, giant undead knights in coats of armor, creepy skeleton snake things, and more.

Your game's progress can be checked by a map they show in between levels. Your ultimate destination is this big tower thing in front of the moon which houses Dracula, but first you have to pass through a multitude of different stages to get there.

I like how each stage has a different personality. You've got a haunted mansion, a manse made of brick, crumbling ruins, the aforementioned underground cavern, a laboratory, a clock tower... the game definitely pays homage to many different kinds of horror movie genres.

The bosses at the end of each stage pay homage as well. Memorable bosses are Medusa, Frankenstein, the Grim Reaper, those mummies I mentioned earlier, and yeah, Dracula himself. Each boss has a different strategy you must employ to defeat it. Medusa you can slam with holy water so she can't move - and then you can whip her into submission. Frankenstein sends Igor (I think that is what he is supposed to be) after you as a distraction and you have to attack him to stun him to get him off your back so you can kill good ole Frank. I loathed this fight when I was a kid! The Grim Reaper I beat on my most recent playthrough by getting holy water times two and peppering him with it so he couldn't move. Otherwise he is usually pretty tough.

Dracula though has always haunted me. He disappears and reappears wherever he damn well pleases, most of the time right on top of your character causing a lot of damage. Even if he does appear at a safe distance, only his head is vulnerable. You can jump up to whip it, but you have to be very careful because he always launches three fireballs at you from underneath his cloak. My strategy beating it last night was to jump around launching boomerangs - hoping I'd get lucky and he'd materialize in their path. And then when I ran out of boomerangs to carefully pick and choose my attacks so I wouldn't get nailed by fireballs.

Killing Dracula in his human form is tough enough, and just four hits will kill you. But after you beat his human form, he turns into this raging white beast that is very hard to kill. He jumps around the stage and launches fireballs at you. You have to jump and whip him in the face. He isn't actually that difficult to beat, but the limited damage you can take after your battle with his human form makes it very easy for him to kill you. Especially when he traps you in the corner and doesn't jump high enough for you to scramble under him to safety!

The ending sequence for the game consists of the castle falling down, followed by the roll of the credits. It seems like this was a popular ending sequence for NES games. Castelvania, Ninja Gaiden, I don't know how many other games had the castle falling down as the big finale.

As long and arduos as the game seemed when I was a kid, I find that I can actually beat it pretty quickly as an adult. I completed it in a half hour or so, give or take ten minutes. I didn't encounter any serious problems until I got to the bridge with the bats. I died a lot there, but eventually figured out the pattern I needed to get through it.

Despite the short length, it is still an amazing game. I think that even if I didn't grow up playing this game, I would still enjoy it. So if you're some youngster out there reading this right now and think that a game this old seems lame, don't think that. You may like it!

It's fun, its challenging, and it is very creative. Considering this game came out when I was four years old, it has aged amazingly well. Every single time I pick it up I know I am going to have a great time. It just makes me feel happy playing this game.

Castlevania is the definition of a true classic. Will it get that A+ I mentioned at the beginning of this review? After a very, very short conference with my inner self, I have come to a conclusion. Yes. It does.

Best game ever? No. But it is a game that holds great memories for me. I will always hold Castlevania close to my heart and treasure it forever.

Overall:

A+

Video Game Review: Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

PlayStation 3

This game makes me feel old... really old. It brings to mind when I was a teenager full of good ole angsty teenage angst. I was a first person shooter fan back then. Granted, the only two first person shooters I had actually played were Wolfenstein 3D and Doom - but hey, I liked them.

One game I had heard a lot about was Duke Nukem 3D. I had heard how this was the most amazing and interactive game EVER. Not only was it set in the modern world, unlike those other two games, but you could do so much stuff that I never would have thought possible in a video game. You could flush toilets, turn lights on and off, ride subway cars, fly around with a jetpack, take a leak, even give strippers money. In Doom and Wolfenstein, you walked around and you shot stuff. You couldn't even jump! Understandably the concept of the game fascinated me.

Since I wasn't a PC gamer, I had to patiently wait for the game to hit home consoles. I had my eye on the Nintendo 64 version since it looked the smoothest and least pixelated. Yeah everything had that "I've been smeared in Vaseline!" look to it that so many Nintendo 64 games seemed to possess, but I preferred that to the blocky, messy appearance of the other home versions.

The game was a colossal letdown in my mind. I liked the environments and the level design and all that. I liked the game's sense of humor. But it wasn't that fun to me. In fact, it frustrated me immensely. The levels were so big I would often get completely lost and have no idea what to do or where to go next. I'd clear each stage of enemies - and then waste hours upon hours on end wandering around looking for whatever it was I could have missed that was keeping me from completing the level.

Right off the bat in the very first level of the game, I was stuck. And this was in an era where there was no readily available internet to help me through when I'd get stuck. Somehow I powered through the level, only to encounter the same problem in the next level. And the next. And the next. I had rented the game for an entire three day weekend and had maybe, maybe cleared four or five levels. I knew for damned sure that I hadn't even come close to beating the game.

I returned Duke Nukem 64 at the end of those three days, completely disappointed that this game I had pined for for so long was not really not that much fun after all. I didn't think it was that revolutionary either. Yeah you could do things that you couldn't do in other games, but these were novelties, nothing really that game changing or awe inspiring. Oooh, push a button and hear a toilet flush. The game still wasn't any fun! I usually don't like leaving games uncompleted, but I never did rent it again in an attempt to finish it.

This was 1997. Time passed. And I mean a LOT of time. 18 years as a matter of fact; enough time to make me forget how much I had originally disliked the game. Mid 2015 I happened to find myself perusing the Playstation Store on my PS3 and I noticed that this game was free for PS Plus members. It wasn't just a straight port of the original game, it would feature enhanced graphics, trophy support, online play, and all the extra add-on levels from the old PC version of the game. I immediately thought "oh hey! Awesome! Duke Nukem is a classic" and set out to play it right away.

No more than a level or two into the game, all those old frustrations came bubbling up to the surface once again. I repeatedly got stuck, overlooking whatever small hidden switch I needed to push, every cracked wall I needed to bust through. It didn't take long for those old N64 era memories of disliking the game to come back to me. Once again, I wanted to like the game, but I just couldn't.

But one major difference existed between my playing days back in 1997 and my playing days now: the ability to access the internet and look up what to do whenever I would get stuck. And this happened much, much more than I care to admit. I started making my way through the game with the help of online guides. Slowly but surely I made progress, making it to where I had made it back in the N64 days and beyond.

And something weird started to happen: the game got easier for me. Much easier. Usually games start out easy and slowly build in difficulty, but I found that the opposite was true here. Sure I would get stuck every once in a while, but I found that I was able to complete each level in no more than an hour or so with minimal reliance on the internet.

And then I was finally able to enjoy the game.

The concept of Duke Nukem really isn't that groundbreaking. At least, nowadays it is not. It's a first person shooter set in a modern world which has been invaded by aliens. You walk around levels that are set mainly in cities. You shoot aliens and you collect keys that eventually unlock the way to the end of the level. The aliens come in all shapes and sizes. You've got pig cops, fireball shooting jetpack aliens, aliens that ride around in little rocket shooting vessels, aliens that hatch from eggs and look like little balls of slime. The weapons you use are typical FPS fare. You've got the obligatory handgun. There's a shotgun, machine gun, ice gun, rocket launcher, shrink ray... nothing too groundbreaking.

What made the game revolutionary when it was released was its setting. Each level is really big, and takes you to areas you usually don't see in video games. Movie theaters, strip clubs, convenience stores, police stations, heck even museums and government offices. Duke packs a bad attitude too, and is constantly spouting sarcastic one liners that lighten the mood of the game.

Each section of the game is broken down into about 5 or 6 stages. At the end of the final stage you square off against a giant boss character and then you move on to the next section of the game. I forget how many sections there are, but the game seems VERY long. Considering I got this for free, it was definitely well worth the download. This game packs a ton of content, I have to give it that.

The PlayStation 3 version of the game includes all the bonus or add-on levels from the old PC version of the game. I don't even know if a lot of these levels were available on the home console versions of Duke Nukem 3D. Some of the later expansion levels were pretty cool. The Washington DC segment is awesome. You explore a ton of landmarks like the Pentagon and the White House. The Smithsonian level, while big and confusing and VERY easy to get lost in, is brilliantly designed. Another cool expansion segment is the Christmas portion of the game. Christmas music plays, snow falls, and all the levels are Christmas themed. The enemies even wear Santa hats to add to the authenticity of the environment. I played this around Christmas time so it was pretty cool and coincidental that things worked out that way.

Another cool expansion stage is set in the Bahamas. Everything is changed for this segment of the game. All the weapons become beach themed. For example, the handgun becomes a squirt gun, health packs change to bundles of bananas. The music is always Caribbean themed, and the enemies don Hawaiian shirts and shorts while doing battle with you.

As I mentioned, the game became much easier for me as I played on. I don't know if it is because the game actually became easier, or if I just became used to its tricks. Where to look for switches and cracks, how to find ventilation shafts with ease, that kind of thing. But the farther I got into the game, the less I had to rely on online help.

And that definitely added a lot to the enjoyment for me. I actually came to grow quite fond of Duke Nukem by the time I finished it. And that says a lot considering how much I loathed it towards the beginning.

I'd say overall I had a really good time with the game. I started this last year, but it took me quite a while to finish it due to the fact that I took a lot of long breaks in between completing chapters of the game. But those breaks didn't diminish the game in my eyes at all. In fact, they helped me enjoy it more because if I had played it straight through I probably would have gotten quite sick of the game.

Anyone looking to take a trip down memory lane should for sure check out this game, especially if you can get your hands on it for free like I did. If you are a newcomer... hmm. I don't really know if I can recommend this game to you. It doesn't particularly withstand the test of time. And also it is very lengthy and can be extremely frustrating at times. If you are curious about older first person shooters and this particular stage in their evolution, I wouldn't dissuade you from checking it out. But I think that unless you grew up with Duke Nukem, you'd probably be better off playing other things.

Is this a great game? Nah. Did I have fun with it? Did it bring back some good memories of my teenage years? Sure. I'll probably never play it again, but at least I can say that I have finally closed the book on Duke Nukem. The same book that I opened about 18 years ago. And in a weird kind of way, that makes me feel satisfied with my experience playing this game. I feel a sense of closure here, and that makes me happy.

Overall:

C+