Fun'N'Games'N'Shit

I am thoroughly disappointed by Fun'N'Games.  When I saw the game sitting on the shelf it seemed like something right up my alley.  It appeared to be another game like Art Alive! for the Genesis, but with extra non-painting modes like Mario Paint.  It even was capable of using the Sega Mega Mouse, which I don't have, but that's cool, right?  I've never come across one of these non-games that I couldn't squeeze some fun out of by doing some weird shit.

Milon's Secret Castle Full of Money and Honey

Often my reasons for selecting old games for purchase is completely arbitrary and stupid. Sometimes I'll buy a game because it has a goofy title, but most often I throw down my dollar on a game simply because I've never heard of it. In this case, I bought Milon's Secret Castle because its label was in nice condition. This wasn't my only reason, of course. It is a Hudson game, and as someone who hasn't really played many Hudson games, I felt like I should give one of their older NES title a try. The name of the game sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. As it turns out, I had not only seen the game before, I had played it, or at least a hacked version, as a built in title for the Power Games, though not for much time.

Blades of Vengeance: An Intense Battle With Unbelievable Evil

When looking through Genesis games at a used game store today, a friend of mine decided to purchase Blades of Vengeance simply because under the title was written “Intense Battle With Unbelievable Evil.” Quite frankly, that description was worth dropping the two US dollars. It just sounds like it would be kinda fuckin' metal, and that seems like it would be entertaining. The game was made by Beam Software in 1993 for the Genesis. Beam Software has made quite a few games, but the only one I've ever actually played is the SNES version of Shadowrun, which was pretty neat.

Gotcha! The Sport! The Exclamations!

In spite of the two exclamation points in the title, Gotcha! The Sport! is not a very exciting game.  Compared to other NES game I received from my brother’s trip to a retro game expo, The Mafat Conspiracy, this is downright dull.  Considering it is a game from LJN I guess I should just be thankful it isn’t a complete unplayable mess like all of their licensed Marvel games.  I first heard about this game in Chrontendo, but when I was handed the cartridge I couldn’t remember it at all.  You’d think a paintball based light gun game would be more memorable.

Torchlight

Thanks to Steam’s absurd summer sales this year, I’ve picked up Torchlight for a tiny amount of money.  The most frequent way I’ve heard Torchlight described is as “a single-player Diablo to hold you over until Diablo III” and that is pretty accurate. It was created at Runic Games by some of the Diablo games’ key staff, with the express goal of creating a spiritual successor.  There haven’t been many action RPG’s in the mold of Diablo lately, and far fewer have been as successful as Torchlight.  I guess the market has moved on to the more consistently profitable MMO’s , but there is definitely a charm and a lot of fun to this type of game.

Metal Slug's 1st Portable Mission

I have a lot of respect for the Metal Slug series, but I could never spend a whole lot of time with it. Initially this was a financial problem, as the difficulty the game mixed with my frugal nature made dropping tokens into game that could kill me five seconds in a risky decision. When emulators came around, the Metal Slug games were something of a short term distraction. They are ruined by free play, because it removes any incentive to get good, and I always end up mindlessly running through the game. It has given me an appreciation for the art and the spectacle, but not finesse of actually playing.

Golgo 13 in The Mafat Conspiracy

My brother recently to some sort of retro game expo, so I told him to bring me back something cheap that he's never heard of. This is how I came into possession of The Mafat Conspiracy for the NES. I had never heard of the game either, but as it turns out that it is the sequel to Vik Tokai's Golgo 13: Top Secret Mission. In Japan, that title was called Golgo 13 Episode 1: Twilight of the Gods, and this one was Golgo 13 Episode 2: The Riddle of Icarus. While the original game is fondly remembered for being relatively Mature for an NES title and for generally being strange, it must not have sold particularly well for Vic Tokai to have decided to remove the Golgo 13 branding from the packaging. It's not surprising considering the obscurity of Golgo 13 in the US.