Countdown Vampires: Creatively Bankrupt Survival Horror

With Halloween not far off, I feel like I should write about some survival horror games. Thankfully, the late nineties have left behind a massive amount of poverty horror games meant to cash in on the success of Resident Evil. Probably the most egregious level of copying can be found in 1999's Countdown Vampires, the first game developed by K2 LLC. There is a certain sense of comedy about the fact K2 was acquired by Capcom in 2008. Of course, being unoriginal is only one of a multitude of problems, which I will attempt to document henceforth.

Neo Geo Super Dodge Ball Is Best Dodge Ball

Most people that have spent some quality time with an NES probably have some fond memories of Super Dodge Ball. For those of you that haven't, you are dead to me. It's a great game that is marred by some pretty horrendous sprite flicker, and sadly, most of it's ports sequels had issues with controls or general shittyness. Thankfully, just before going bankrupt in 1996, Technos, the company behind Super Dodge Ball, Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and a million other Kunio games, released their final game, Super Dodge Ball for the Neo Geo. This version happens to be my favorite version of the game, and the one of the most entertaining games that might be found in an arcade cabinet.

Insane Bicycle Stunt Bonus

There are few games that I have played as much as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Steam says I've played it for 73 hours, which is a lot, but it's not an absurd amount considering the game. Of course, Steam doesn't account for all the time I put into the console versions of the game. On PS2, I must have played it twice as much as that, though not quite as much on Xbox. Overall, that is an absurd amount of time. The scary thing is, I still haven't done everything there is to do in the game. I guess that's just the way Rockstar games go for me.

Cliffhanger: At Least It Has Cliffs

I've played some games with pretty big oversights, but I can't think of any as egregious as Cliffhanger for the Game Boy. I mean, how does a game called Cliffhanger  omit the ability to hang. I could understand if the movie it was based on weren't actually about a dude hanging on cliffs, but about the plot device, but that's not the case. If my memory of some ten minutes of the film, which I must have seen over twenty years ago, serves me right, I'm pretty sure the movie was about a dude that scales cliffs, and, in many situations, hangs from them. In fact, the cover of the game is a picture of Stallone hanging from a goddamn cliff.  I guess I should have expected this from Malibu Interactive, a part of a failed comic book company.

Steel Ball Da-Da-Da! Breakout!

The meme probably already ran its course quite a few years ago, but I like to think that most people reading this know about Japan Break Industries. For those that don't know about it, they are a Japanese demolition company, also known Nihon Break Kogyo, that took the internet by storm in 2004 with the release of what is definitely the most catchy demolition-themed song ever. This flash video done with ASCII art and set to the eurobeat version of the theme, which would fit perfectly in an episode of  Initial D or something, was really popular. More importantly for this site, there was a promotional Flash game as well.

Trouble With Focus

Lately, I've been thinking that I have a problem with focus. I have a whole bunch of games that I have access to and would like to play, but for some reason I just don't. This isn't a problem I have that is specific to video games, and I have a similar issue with books and television, but it seems particularly pronounced in my preferred hobby. There are certainly a lot of factors that lead to this, but the more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that it's not just a problem with me but a problem with games as well.

Mega Man Powered Up

Mega Man Powered Up is pretty much my ideal way for remakes of classic games to be done. It takes the original Mega Man from 1987 and brings it to the PSP, maintaining what made the original great, meanwhile adding to it in a lot of ways. There are a lot of mechanical additions and interesting bonuses, but the most important addition is an element of whimsy. Between this and the also excellent Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, it seemed like Capcom was finally shying away quick and lazy ports of their old titles and were beginning to do some quality updates, but, sadly, due to the poor sales of these two titles they did not continue in that direction.