Backlog: Alien Isolation

The Ripley family just has hell of luck with Weyland-Tutani and aliens. They just seem to be magnetized to each other. 

I started Alien Isolation in 2017. I liked the idea of a slow moving, stealth focused game, rather than a run and gun. 

Creative Assembly nailed the aesthetic of that 1970s retro-future, clean white walls with random buttons and tape drives everywhere. All the computers are that fake DOS/Apple 2 interface. And every... single....door... is automatic. (the absolute height of future technology). 

Valkyria Chronicles

Played On: Steam

Release Date: April 24, 2008

I like that PlayStation consoles tend to have really weird games come out for them. I would assume it's their greater relationship with Japanese studios who are slightly more willing to take risks on games and embrace Japanese culture in general. They have a legacy though, all the way back to LSD, Vib Ribbon, and Mr. Mosquito for the PS1.

Some of my favorite games of the PS3 generation were ones that had little hype but then landed in a great way. Demon's Souls, Ni No Kuni, and Valkyria Chronicles.

I bought Valkyria Chronicles on a whim and besides Demon's Souls, I don't think another game won me over as much as Valkyria Chronicles. 

Game Trade Horror Story

At random times in my childhood, my mom would take up the issue of videogame violence, and I would find myself bribing my "cool" aunt to buy Resident Evil 2 for me.

One of those times was a random weekend afternoon when she walked into the room to find me playing Mortal Kombat 2 on the Sega Genesis. Being the showoff I was, I had just pulled off Kitana's fan decapitation. My brother, frustrated as always, threw controller 2 toward the Genesis.

I guess my mom attributed his violent outburst to losing to Mortal Kombat. But that was just how my little brother was. He had a short fuse. He'd cut his dress pants with scissors if he didn't want to go to church, he would rip the Sega Genesis from it's power supply to keep NBA jam from saving his losing record, and on multiple occasions hit me in the head with a metal trash can for just generally being better than him at everything.

So soon, we found ourselves wandering into a super shady used electronic store with Mortal Kombat 2, Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing, and Killer Instinct. We traded in three awesome fighting games of the generation for something like $35.

This was one of those stores where the owner sat behind the counter smoking cigars, with a sweat stained white t-shirt on, always reading some sort of magazine that had nothing to do with electronics. There were 300 copies of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with the "Not For Resale" banner on the cartridge hanging on the wall.

My father was sent with us to filter what was too violent and what wasn't. He was being a hard-ass about it, but I knew the way to his heart.

I saw Timothy Dalton with a pistol and the classic "007" logo. My old man loves James Bond like most guys do. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Ehh, that's clean violence. I don't think your mom would care."

He then vetoed games like Toe Jam & Earl for being "too weird" and Zombies Ate My Neighbors because although it looked cartoony, my mom has a weird thing about zombies and demons.

I ended up walking out of the store with James Bond 007: The Duel and Brett Hull Hockey. (which was far inferior to NHL 94, which I already had)

Now the Duel wasn't the worst game I'd ever played. It was a fairly standard action plat-former that was sort of a cross between the level design of Mega Man and the action and A.I. of Contra.



I became pretty good at the game, because when you don't have adult income, you have to force yourself to love mediocre games that you purchased.

Even as I faked a smile while saving ladies in nice dresses in the middle of a jungle, I couldn't help but think that I had lost out in this trade. Even as I killed jaws in his weird Mech and saw the ending sequence, I just wish I could kill villages with giant dinosaurs or steal the soul of Johnny Cage.

The Eye Candy of Racing Games

Side note: Retronauts actually discussed arcade racers last week. I swear, I started writing this blog before I knew that was the topic. Figured I should give a shout-out to them though as they jolted my memory into remembering some other games.

Racing games were one of the last games people went to arcades to play, and are often used in demonstrations of the new hardware's capabilities.

Those gorgeous cars can show off the new lighting effects as streetlights and buildings reflect off of the hood of the car. It can show how the physics engine uses the processing power of the console to create realistic damage.

My first memory of a racing game is a little foggy, but I know it was in an arcade. It was either Pole Position or Cruising USA.

I played Pole Position much later than most people did because it was only a quarter a play, but I hated the game. The wheel gave no feedback and the pedal was in an awkward position where I always missed the brake.

I was a victim of the digitized graphics of the early 90's. I thought Donkey Kong Country and Mortal Kombat were some of the best looking games I had ever seen. So sitting down in the giant arcade cabinet and driving through California was an overstimulating experience. I didn't play Cruis'n USA as much as I would like since it was one of the first machines to break that dollar line.

One of the first racing games I remember playing at home was Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing on DOS. I didn't understand Formula 1 racing (I still don't) but loved this game. Yes, that irritating buzzing noise was consistent during your entire play time, but I couldn't hear that because I had Disney Radio blasting the Bartman while I played.




A few years later, Virtua Racing for the Sega Genesis again captured my F1 imagination with the deliciously classic Sega "Virtua" look. (See Virtua Fighter) Sega had an entire line of games that looked like Max Headroom to show off their game system, and I admit, Virtua Racer still looks beautiful to me.


This game came on one of the larger cartridges and actually has the honor of being the game that ruined my first Genesis. Something fried and I had to get another Sega.

Ridge Racer spun in my Playstation 1 for more hours than a one course racing game should, but damn did the graphics blow my mind.

I think my favorite racing game of all time is Ridge Racer Type 4 for the Playstation 1. After all, it is the best looking racing game of all time according to critics of the mid to late 1990's.




The drifting in this game is beyond unrealistic, but it's fun, and that is what is important to me. Most of the racing games I've talked about are arcade racers rather than simulations. I don't understand or care to understand enough about cars to slowly tweak my setup for Gran Turismo or Forza.

I still play through Ridge Racer Type 4 on my Vita about once a year, slowly unlocking all the cars again. It surprises me how many cars I remember from my childhood.

X-men on the Sega Genesis

Like most children in the early 90's, my brothers and I were completely caught up in X-men mania. (Something had to take the place of Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtle mania which we had just been cured of) The cartoon was on TV, the comics were getting a major push, and the giant two screen arcade game was eating our quarters.

Naturally we had most of the games for the Sega Genesis. This was one of the few times where we could all agree to pool our allowance for a common cause. Although the games had many flaws (music and sound effects, terrible level design, difficulty, plot, etc) the X-men games hold a special place in my family's collective heart.

The 1993 X-men game was the first one we purchased. We had no idea it existed until one faithful trip to the video game aisles at Toys R Us where we found X-men on sale for $20. I pulled one of those pieces of paper off the display and wandered up to customer service to claim my prize.

It was actually a pretty solid action platformer.




This game reminded me much of the first Ninja Turtles' game on the NES because you could switch between one of four characters, (Cyclopes, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Gambit) and each one had special abilities or weapons that were better suited for certain parts of the game.

There was one level, Mojo's Super Crunch, that I was rarely able to beat. There was a platformer part, early on in the level where I never figured out how to get passed it.

I had to rely on Nightcrawler teleporting through a wall. Nightcrawler's teleporting ability was random, sometimes he would slide right to the other side of the wall for me and other times he would teleport backwards, essentially forcing me to start the game over again.

My favorite game was X-men 2: The Clone Wars. This took the controller sharing / bickering over who got to play out of mix because it had co-op. Not only did it have co-op, but it did it right. You didn't share lives, started with plenty of lives, and when one player fell off the screen, they would teleport up to the other character.




This had a weird cast of characters available, just like the first game. You could pick between Beast, Cyclops, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Psylocke (who was getting a big comic book push at the time) and Magneto. My brother and I loved the amount of choice, but with the cartoon being on the air, I wondered why we didn't see Storm, Rogue, Jubilee, or even Bishop?

In a way, I guess I have to give them props for including Nightcrawler and Beast, who had limited time in the cartoon, and Psylocke who had joined team Cyclops in the comic series, but never felt like a major player.

The big issue with this game is how large some of the levels are and the backtracking required. This gets especially confusing since so much of the maps have similar backgrounds. My brother and I stopped bickering over who got to play, and started arguing over which way we were supposed to go.

Finally, late in our Sega Genesis days, my brother traded Maximum Carnage for Wolverine: Adamantium Rage which turned out to be one of the biggest trade downs ever accomplished in my house.




Listen to those gorgeous opening credits. They hit that 90's extreme-ness so well.

It's a shame that the level design is so atrocious, the enemy design so uninspired, and the plot just about non-existent. I remember something about Wolverine having a photograph and wanting revenge, but I don't think it went much deeper than that.

The difficulty in Adamantium Rage was incredible as well. The only real way to beat the game was with a Game Genie or by doing what the guy in the YouTube video does and run through most of it.

I think most people can agree that X-men games have never been great. Some of the early beat-em-ups scratch that nostalgia itch, but most of the games have been digital piles of garbage. (I'm looking at you current generation Marvel games.)

Editorial: The Importance of the Controller (Top 3 List)

With this new generation of consoles coming, the controller seems to be the most talked about feature. (You know, other than that whole DRM thing) I don't remember the controller design being all that important up until the Playstation 1 / N64 era. Moving into "3D" worlds required much more precision than ever before. Manufacturers had to concentrate on more than going left or right and having 2-6 input buttons.

The controller had to be an afterthought for most console designers before the early 90s.

The NES came with its harsh rectangle and stiff D-pad. The Colecovision had its calculator with the joystick at the top. Or the similarly designed Intellivision with the calculator at the top instead.

Sega seemed to have the worst designs. I never really got comfortable with the Dreamcast controller and the few times I held a Saturn controller I wanted to throw it out the window. Even the simplicity of the Genesis controller wasn't exactly perfect. I still have scars from the blisters that controller gave me when playing Royal Rumble.

There have actually been more controller failures than successes. But, being ever the positive person, I'm going to focus on my top three favorite controllers.

3. Xbox 360

There's no way this controller could be in the top list if the D-pad was used more often in modern games. We can all agree, it is probably the worst D-pad on a controller. 

But in the age of the console first person shooter, this controller is the best. The triggers, bumpers, and placement of the sticks are ergonomically perfect for the modern console game. 

It wasn't until I switched to the Playstation 3 when I realized just how perfect this controller is. And considering where it came from, it's design was no small feat. Just look at the original Xbox's controller (I count it among the worst) compared to where Microsoft brought the design for the 360. 

2. Playstation Dual Shock 2: Specifically, the emerald green see through Dual Shock 2 controller. 

The weight was great, the design gorgeous, and I could play for five hours without getting tired. 

I loved being able to see through the case and see how the Dual Shock worked. 

I used this bad boy so much that the analog sticks eventually stopped working. Not willing to throw it in the trash, I took the controller apart and figured out how the thing worked. Turned out one of the pads the joystick interacted with was lose. Just had to reseat it and it worked perfectly. 

It felt solid to. I knew I could use it as a weapon if I somehow came under attack while playing games. 

1. Nintendo Gamecube

A small confession, I might spend time on the weekends writing love poetry to this controller. 

I don't hear this controller talked about often, but no other controller comes close to the Gamecube. My fingers instantly knew where all the buttons were. It was light, it had a lot of beautiful feminine curves, and it came in just about every color you could want.

It felt like the games were built around the controller, whether you were playing MarioKart or Resident Evil 4. Everything just worked. 

I still boot up my Gamecube from time to time and just wish I could pair that controller up with my Playstation 3. 

Editorial: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the Personality of the Level

A buddy came over last weekend for a kickback, old-school sleepover with pizza, video games, and general nerd discussion. (The only difference is instead of drinking Mountain Dew, we drank beer.)

When he saw that I had several Genesis classics on PSN, he demanded we boot them up. 

First up was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. My buddy is a Sonic fiend. He's one of those few people that have been able to forgive the countless terrible games featuring our favorite blue mascot. He's one of those mythological people that get excited before every Sonic game that comes out.  

I have a soft spot for the first three Sonic games on the Genesis, but I drifted apart from the chili dog eating animal after the Genesis. 

There are sections of the game I vividly remember. The beautiful first zone, Emerald Hill, bouncing off the flippers in Casino Night Zone, and the frustrating Shoots and Ladders of the Oil Ocean Zone. 

And then there are the ones I always forget about, not because they are lesser zones, but they were the ones I didn't have to play as much or they didn't cause me to throw my controller at the TV. It had been so long since I'd played Sonic 2, that when we came to Aquatic Ruin, Hill Top, or that damned Metropolis Zone, it was like seeing the game for the first time again. 

I was amazed at how varied each zone was. It's something missing from games today. Gears of War and Call of Duty are filled with the same brown and gray hues for the entire 10 hour campaign. 

In Sonic 2, each Zone has a personality, its own music and enemies. You came to know the new difficulties that awaiting in each area. It was handy when talking about the new secret you found on the playground to reference the lava river in Hill Top Zone or the bottomless pit in Mystic Cave. I can't say, "oh, there's a dog tag hidden in the ruined city, with all the cement and dust when the locusts attack," because that's the entire game. 

It took maybe 15 minutes for my buddy to get to the Winged Fortress, where hundreds of times I gave up on the game in my childhood.

We didn't beat it Saturday night. It might have been because we did not have a Genesis controller so the muscle memory was just slightly off. It might have just been the 7 beers we each had already. But Dr. "Eggman" Robotnic would continue to hold the last Chaos Emeralds. 

OPM September 1999 - Letters to the Editor

Back in 1999, I had an embarrassing Limp Bizkit related email address, dressed like a skater, and was a mall rat. Having just moved to a new city and getting a "babysitting" job that paid a whole $40 a week, I spent a lot of time bouncing between the Babbages, FunCoLand, and Gamestop at my local mall to pass the time and blow some cash.

I was a regular at Babbages. The employees there actually liked talking videogames and appeared to know more than your average game shop mall employee.

I was known by name at Babbages. They knew that I was good for $50-80 a month and I traded in games all the time. I often was able to jump ahead on pre-order waiting lists (when they still meant something) and was privy to games they hadn't yet demoed on the floor.

So, when they got a Dreamcast with Powerstone, the manager treated me like a VIP. He said, "Dan, I have something awesome to show you. Let's play." I grabbed that large awkward controller and we booted up the Sega Dreamcast.

It was fun. It was actually a fun 3D arena fighter with weapons spread across each map.  I unfortunately bought Bio F.R.E.A.K.S for the Playstation 1 and knew how these types of games typically went.

My mind was having a hard time conceiving how smooth the frame rate was for a 3d fighter.I was all too familiar with the frame rate drop when playing multiplayer Smash Brothers or Goldeneye on the N64, but my brief time on the Dreamcast I didn't notice any slowdown.

Then he popped in Sonic Adventure and my jaw dropped when I saw my favorite blue mascot blazing through this 3D city.

While I was playing, the manager was spewing off all these hardware specs that meant very little to me, but essentially he said, "Dreamcast is more powerful than what the PS2 will be."

I was just about sold.

Later while contemplating if I should blow my summer allowance on a Dreamcast, I came up with the idea to write a letter to the editor of the Official Playstation Magazine.

I was surprised when my Yahoo! Messenger started exploding with all of these strangers telling me, "Thank you for asking for a side by side comparison." Or "You tell them." (Which was weird, because I don't feel like I expressed an opinion.)

I had no clue that my letter had been published as my OPM still hadn't arrived. (I later found out, this issue came out a week earlier in Canada, which is why I wasn't aware that I had been published.)

Here is the only time I've been published in a magazine.

That's a lot of MBs and MHz!

Thinking back, the manager was probably trying to get a hardware sale. He probably didn't have a strong preference one way or the other in the Sega vs Sony vs Nintendo fight.

I don't know if he was getting desperate because the Dreamcast wasn't selling as well as they had hoped or if in a year he would be spouting the same lines about the Playstation 2 being the superior console.

Either way, I used my money to buy a car and I wouldn't have either console until 2002 when the first Resident Evil film was released on DVD and I bought my PS2.

Editorial: Biggest E3 Misteps

Watching Microsoft confirm our worst DRM fears and then the subsequent bitch slap Sony delivered only hours later made me think of the biggest E3 missteps. Konami is a perennial failure forcing Japanese executives to read intense English scripts about their games. And damn if there aren't always CEOs that obviously know nothing about games, nervously standing in front of the crowd, talking about games, spewing buzz words. All of these clips could be cut into a 3 hour montage on YouTube.

Here are 3 of my favorite failures at E3.

Nintendo 2008
E3 has only been widely available to watch for maybe 8 years now, and there have been some pretty pathetic pressers, but nothing was as disappointing as Nintendo in 2008 when they spent what felt like half their conference showing the future failure that is Wii music.




Sega 1995

I read this one in countless magazines and just couldn't believe it. I was a Genesis guy and was incredibly excited about the Saturn.

Sega decided they would surprise release the Sega Saturn the day of the conference, but only to some stores and with only 6 launch games. On top of that, the Saturn was $100 more than the Playstation. All these missteps culminated in the Saturn sitting in the 1990s shame circle right next to the Virtual Boy and Apple Pippin.

Sony 2006

Sony already had a misstep with their 2005 conference where they egotistically announced a $499 price point, but then came the realistic-battles-from-feudal-Japan-crab-battle. Just watch the video, it explains itself.