A Brief Look At Gundam Games

Video games based on Gundam have a terrible reputation, and it while it is not entirely undeserved, there are a great deal that goes completely overlooked. There are a lot of games that are awful, a lot that might be good for fans of certain genres, and some that are incredibly satisfying for fans of the series. As a fan of the franchise, I can understand how readers may not consider me a reliable source, but there are good Gundam games, and it bothers me that people seem to completely dismiss any game with the Gundam on it. This is by no means a complete guide, but I think it covers a good deal of important titles.

Shining Some Light On Boktai

If I had to choose the most unique or most insane GBA game, I would likely cast my vote for Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hands, the Konami game that is built around the use of a light sensor. Leave it up to Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear, to come up with some really bizarre game ideas. I suppose if the man behind one of their most successful franchises tells them to buy a bunch of light sensors because he has an idea for a game, then Konami is not likely to tell him no. Whatever the case, I am glad it got made because it is a really interesting game.

Mighty Bomb Jack: From The Dark Early NES Days

Mighty Bomb Jack is an NES sequel to Tecmo's first game, Bomb Jack. Released in 1986, it is a game from a transitional period in the NES's history from arcade-style games to more modern console era games. I don't know if Jack is supposed to have been a mascot for Tecmo, but the character has a bizarre design that is a mix between a superhero and cereal mascot. In a lot of ways the game straddles the line between those to styles, and the result is a game that is mostly just frustrating and annoying.

Dear Natalya: Nobody Likes You

Seriously, nobody at all. You are not just an encumbrance, you are a hindrance to fun. Obviously, you were a pain in GoldenEye 007 for N64, but you really didn't add much to the movie either. I mean, the movie had so many characters with Trevelyan, Boris, and Xenia, so what did you really add to it? You're just some boring Russian girl, and you weren't actually Russian because you were played by a Polish woman. You're a Bond girl, but you aren't that hot. You are like a frumpier Scully from the X-Files. Maybe you were a good role model to geeky girls that are into computers, which is rare for a Bond film, but you were probably also a role model to bitchy women.

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero +Deleted Scenes

The development history of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero is pretty strange and confusing, and possibly as a result the game is kind of a mess. Sure, at it's heart it is still Counter-Strike 1.6, which is a solid, though dated, competitive FPS. Throughout its four years in development Rogue Entertainment, Valve Software, Gearbox Software, Ritual Entertainment, and Turtle Rock Studios all worked on the game. Considering that, it is not surprising that the game ended up the way it is.

Maximum Carnage: Listen All You Fools

I think there are a lot of people my age out there who have fond memories Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage from Software Creations. It is something I don't think anyone who grew up after the 90's comic book collector's bubble burst would quite understand. It's a Spider-Man game that also has Venom as a playable character, it has a bunch cameos of other Marvel characters, and the big boss is the crazy serial killer Carnage, whom all the kids loved at the time. On top of all that, it had music from Green Jellÿ, and in retrospect that is really the only good thing about it.

Newsflash: Deep Labyrinth Found To Contain Many Subterranean Levels

I bought Deep Labyrinth because it was a five dollar DS game that wasn't some licensed crap or Imagine: Baby Surgeriez or whatever all that DS shovelware was. It may be a very generic game, but it still somehow has the second-most generic name for a dungeon crawler on the DS, losing out to Hudson's Dungeon Explorer. Deep Labyrinth was made by a company known as Interactive Brains, which mostly makes games for Japanese cell phones, so it does not come as a huge surprise to find out it is actually a port of a cell phone game.