2/3

Mascot platformers from the 90s get a bad rap, as they largely should, but a scant few can still be remembered fondly. Jazz Jackrabbit was one such series, developed by Epic Megagames before they morphed into a dudebro studio. A shareware title like Commander Keen, it was part of the unique breed of console-style games for the platform that were actually, you know, good. I remember seeing it demoed at computer shows when I was a kid, where they used it to show off the VGA graphics and MOD music.

The rest of the update is rounded out with Obscure, a survival horror game where a French development tries (and sort of succeeds) at mimicing teenage slasher flicks; Low G Man, a slightly above average NES platformer notably made by KID, who also did the (somewhat better) GI Joe NES games, as well as the underrated Kick Master; Jets 'n' Guns, an indie shoot-em-up from a few years back which introduced the world to SID rock (heavy metal backed by Commodore 64 music, similar to the style used by Anamanaguchi in the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World game soundtrack); and Granada, one of the many titles from the prolific Wolfteam during the 16-bit era.

Our spotlight article is Elevator Action, with a review of the PS3 game added in (which still can't touch Elevator Action Returns, sadly), and a Famicom game based off the gag manga Utsurun Desu is your kusoge. The third episode of Game Club 199X will be up soon, where we discuss Konami's Maze of Galious, but in the meantime, please join us this month to play Vagrant Story, so we can talk about how much we love/hate next month!

Outside of Game Club 199X, we haven't done the standard podcasts very often - the index indicates that the last one was in Spring 2009 - but were briefly resurrecting it for another two hour episode. Audun Sorlie (author of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Donald Duck, Asterix, Jackie Chan and YU-NO articles), joins us as a special guest to talk a bit about the convention MAGFest 2012, before discussing the history of gaming in Europe, and how the continent has lost its unique identity over the last decade or so. It's available to download on Mediafire.

1/22

We've been teasing it for a little awhile now, but we're finally ready to post it - an extremely long interview with Agness Kaku, the translator of Metal Gear Solid 2, amongst the other titles we've posted translation files for lately (Hybrid Heaven, Metal Gear Solid GBC). It's a bloody fantastic interview, if mostly because you don't see this kind of candor and honesty in an interview about old video games. Also in the interview are links to the translation documents for MGS2, which may provide for some very interesting reading.

On the usual article side, I've followed up my review of Dynamite Dux for a few weeks ago with Dynamite Deka, which functionally has not much to do other than sharing a similar name (and being beat-em-ups, and being made by Sega). This is a series more commonly known as Die Hard Arcade in North America, with the sequel being known as Dynamite Cop. I have a special relationship with this game, because the movie theater I worked at in high school had this game in the lobby, so I heard the attract screen ("I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SWAT MEMBERS...WHERE IS THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER?") countless times over the course of at least a few summers. The main reason I wrote this article now is because I discovered that Naomi emulation is pretty good nowadays, so I could play the "lost" third game, Dynamite Deka EX, which was only released in arcades in Japan. As it turns out, it's not a new game so much as a reskinning of the second game to take place in Hong Kong, but it's super bizarre and worth reading about.

Also up is Little Samson, the NES Mega Man-style platformer which is one of the most valued official US release games (not counting ridiculous stuff like Stadium Events), and is actually quite good, as well as Hungry Ghosts, a first person horror game only released on the PlayStation 2 in Japan. Your Weekly Kusoge is Corpse Killer, another FMV game by Digital Pictures. This article bummed me out a bit because I didn't realize Vincent Schiavelli, prolific character actor, had passed away. Our spotlight article is Syndicate, mostly because the game was recently released for a mere $6 on GOG.com, which is undoubtedly part of the marketing plan to prep everyone for the new reimagining coming in a few months courtesy of Starbreeze.

Finally, added a few new book reviews, including Replay: The History of Video Games, Masters of Doom, and Family Computer 1983-1994.

1/14

A handful of brief but interesting articles this week: Rusty may sound familiar to anyone who really keeps up on Castlevania lore, since it's basically a huge ripoff/homage developed for the PC98, although it stars a scantily clad anime chick as opposed to a hulkman barbarian; Hatoful Boyfriend has been making the forum rounds lately as a source of great comedy, considering it's a visual novel where you date pigeons; Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru is one of those "lost" Nintendo titles that they never bothered to localize, even though it's quite charming; and most NES fans probably know Kabuki Quantum Fighter for being that weird game where you infilitrate an organic computer and whip enemies with your hair, but you may not know it was actually a tie-in with a movie around the same time called Jipang, which in turn got a few video game sequel several years back, published by Konami, called 7 Blades. Very odd story behind all of this!

Anyway I spent a good chunk of my Friday night playing this week's kusoge, Perfect Weapon, or at least trying to. It's not really as obscure as some of the awful games we feature here, as it's pretty well known to be an atrocious game, I was really just confirming it, plus it was lying around my room for some reason. I was under the impression it used digitized sprites, but it's actually set up like Resident Evil - of course a game focusing entirely on melee fighting using tank controls is already doomed to failure, and yet this one somehow goes several steps worse. And we're featuring Azure Dreams this week, since we released some localization files for a few Konami games over the past week. Keep your eyes out for more soon.

1/5

Oh crap, MAGFest is tomorrow! Well, it started today technically, but I'm not making the drive down to Maryland until Friday. Anyway, real super quick update here - first off is VVVVVV, an indie platformer that I really rather liked when it came out back in 2010, and didn't realize how much I loved it until the 3DS version came out last week. The other article is a review of Trap Gunner, a unique, vaguely Spy vs. Spy-type action-combat game for the PSOne. And the kusoge is the dreadfully boring Bird Week for the Famicom. Keep an eye out on the Facebook and Twitter feeds for reports from MAGFest. And do check out the blog for some really cool translation documents from various Konami games, as well as rumblings of some very, VERY cool stuff to come in the next few weeks.

12/23

The results of the Best Western Video Game Music of All Time Poll are in! We've compiled a list of 250 songs from numerous composers that seem to be overlooked by much of the VGM community at large, including tons of stuff from the Commodore 64, Amiga, NES and Genesis, along with numerous indie games (and a few AAA titles even) that stand out from the crowd. If nothing else, it should help get rid of that perception that all Western music is generic Hollywood-type stuff!

Updates are going to be slow for a bit due to the holidays and everything, plus other Big Happenings Coming Soon, but in the meantime here's a few shorter articles. Every once in awhile I'm possessed to write about obscure Sega minutae - this time it's Dynamite Dux, which I believe is one of the first cutesy-type beat-em-ups. Overall it's rather average, but it's got a great graphical style, and it's one of those games I'd always read about in magazines for the Sega Master System but had never really played since the system had largely dried up in America when it came out. In other mediocrity news, we also have a review of Blake Stone, two first person shooters from the shareware era that licensed the Wolfenstein 3D engine and took the adventures into space. They also had the bad luck to be released within weeks of Doom and Doom II, respectively, which means they looked and played terribly outdated, but in spite of that I (and probably a few other people out there) have some vaguely pleasant memories of them.

A bit away from the usual norm is an extensive review of all seven versions of Last Action Hero. Why, exactly? Well, every one of us has some kind of game that marked our transition from naive kids who loved everything placed in front of us into cynical bastards aware of commercial exploitation. For me, that game was Bubsy. For Audun Sorlie, it was this. We don't have a proper kusoge article ready this week, but this will more than suffice for quite awhile. There's even a short interview with one of the guys involved that helps explain the ridiculousness of what went wrong, despite a solid design document.

The only truly great game featured in this update is Skygunner, an incredibly fun early PS2 created by a studio called PixelArts. It's a cutesy air combat-type game with irrespresibly cute Japanese-style artwork mixed with a fantastic European-style setting, with some really excellent music. It's light and breezy, and something of a cult classic.

Finally, a bit of book news. Just for the holidays, from now until Wednesday, December 28th, the Kindle version of The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures will be 50% off. That means $4.99 for US buyers, and assorted similar discounts for other regions based on whatever conversion metric Amazon is using at the moment. This is only going for a week, so it's a good time to pick it up, especially if you get a Kindle this holiday season!

Additionally, the book is also enrolled in the Amazon KDP Select program. This means that if you have a Kindle and Amazon Prime, you can borrow the book, for free, although you're limited to one title a month. Keep in mind though that when they mean "Kindle" they mean "an official Kindle device". I only own mobile decides that run Kindle software, and this doesn't apply if you're using an iPhone, Android or the PC reading software. I made the mistake of purchasing my own book to test it out, and based on the refund numbers, it seems like at least one other person did too. Sorry! It's a neat program although initially a little vague.

Finally, the book has always been available in America, the United Kingdom and Germany, but Amazon has expanded its Kindle store to include Italy, France and Spain, so do check that out as well.

Also, thanks to Adventure Gamers for cataloguing my stupid game Que Pasa Perro? in its database, and covering it on their November 2011 Freeware roundup, vaguely legitimizing some random goofiness I threw together over the course of the week. Extra double thanks to the guy who recorded a whole walkthrough and posted it on Youtube. He's doing a Let's Play of the terrifying Bubsy 3D so you know he's an alright kinda guy. And super triple thanks to the folks behind its TVTropes page. I do hope you check out the whole ordeal if you haven't already.

12/17

Quick update - do check out our Child's Play Marathon!

Link: http://www.twitch.tv/cj_iwakura

Hours: 10AM to 10PM EST, Saturday, 12/17.

Games (viewer input highly encouraged!): GOD HAND, the Castle Shikigami Trilogy, FMV Games galore, dating sims, whatever the viewer's twisted heart desires. It's all for your deranged amusement. And the kids' benefit.

12/12

About a year ago or so, we published a massive article covering the many, many Asterix games. This time around is a similarly themed article covering the entirety of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. There are roughly 30 games in total, spanning from the original Konami NES game all the way up until the recent Ubisoft titles, with numerous highs and lows throughout. It's thirteen pages long and includes a brief history of the TMNT franchise itself, making for very comprehensive reading.

Since that particular update is huge, there are only a few smaller articles to post up. One is one which I couldn't think of a proper name for, so I called it Vic Tokai - Speed Tengoku Jump Jigoku. It's a series of four (technically, three and a half) platformers developed by Vic Tokai which are all technically part of the same series, seeing how they have largely identical play mechanics, despite there being no thematic links between them. The first is Kid Kool, which I think the Angry Video Game Nerd (righfully) tore apart earlier this year. However, most of the major issues in that game got fixed for the Master System title Psycho Fox, which then evolved into the Mega Drive/Genesis games Magical Hat no Turbo Buttobi Daibouken (in Japan) and Decap Attack (in North America and Europe). It's sort of cool to see ideas go from total unworkable garbage into a minor classic.

We're finishing up the single game coverage with Martial Masters, an incredibly nice looking arcade 2D fighter made by IGS, who I keep wanting to call the "SNK of Taiwan" just based on its adherence to classic spritework and traditional genres around the turn of the century despite both the hardware and the audience evolving in different directions. None of their games seem to have ever been ported, so they mostly live on through MAME. Their work is generally worth checking out, including this one.

Also up is a new podcast called Game Club 199X, started by members of the HG101 forums and IRC channel. The idea behind this series is to play games as they were originally intended - that is, no FAQs, no cheats, no save states, just the support of the local community - to get through some rather old and obtuse games. Last month's game was Snake's Revenge, which is discussed in this episode. December's game is the Interplat classic (and predecessor to Fallout) Wasteland, so check out the forum thread if you're interested in joining in.

And Your Weekly Kusoge is the Amiga version of Akira, which is largely regarded as the second worst game on the computer. So very much lost potential, there.

12/6

If any English speaker knows the name YU-NO, it's probably from an awful hentai anime translated back in the late 90s. This was a bad way to get introduced to this game, a rather excellent visual novel with some outstanding music. The game's recently been fan-translated, so do check out this expansive article detailing why it's so fascinating. (And a vague NSFW warning on it, since it is technically an eroge.)

HG101 is normally a retro site, but occasionally we cover recent games that tend to get overlooked or are least worth addressing. This is the case with Alpha Protocol, Obsidian's action/stealth/RPG epic from last year. It definitely didn't hit the same level of success as Mass Effect did, but it does some rather clever things in regards to storytelling, even though the plot itself is fundamentally ridiculous.

Other articles this update include Quest for the Rings, a release for the Odyssey² that attempted to combine video and board games; The Fool's Errand, one of the first attempts to marry Games Magazine-style puzzles with a narrative, paving the way for The 7th Guest and Myst; and Revolution X, the incredibly stupid shooting gallery game starring Aerosmith. Your Weekly Kusoge is Xenophage: Alien Bloodsport, one of the many absolutely terrible fighting games developed for the PC after the success of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat in the arcades. And our spotlight article updates our piece on the Korean brawler Eojjeonji Joheun Il-i Saenggil Geot Gateun Jeonyeok and its sequel (and much more succinctly named) Storm.

11/28

The final part of the Ultima article has now been posted, which finishes up by giving a quick briefing of Ultima Online, a handful of cancelled games and fan works, several books and guides, and most importantly, an exclusive interview with Lord British himself, who also recently had a documentary made about his journey into space. The article in total is 15 meaty pages long, putting it up there with the Shin Megami Tensei article in sheer length. Also of note is a preview of the Ultima Collector's Guide by Stephen Emond, a massive 800+ page catalog of Ultima memorabilia and trivia. You can read a bit about it at his Rockethub page, although it's already got enough donations to put it into production. And keeping up with the WRPG theme, please enjoy a review of the Eye of the Beholder series, a trilogy of first person dungeon crawlers.

At any rate, what have you spent your precious holiday gaming time with? Uncharted 3? Arkham City? Skyrim? I spent the past few weeks with Otomedius, to cover the recently released Otomedius Excellent, which somehow got localized despite being a very, very Japanese series. The only reason I got so enamored with it is due to Konami shooter fanboyness, which these games deliver in droves. It is a bit odd, though, considering they reference so many titles that never got releases outside of Japan, but this article should help sort all of that out. Even as someone who spent far too long with it at the expense of much better games, they're...really not all that great. I've seen it get torn to shreds in some reviews, which is harsh, but perhaps not unfair. Beyond the Konami love, its focus is largely on boobs and grinding for weapons, whereas the core games are fairly mediocre by Gradius/Parodius standards.

Additional articles this post-Thanksgiving update include 3D Ultra Pinball, a series of, well, pinball games put out by Dynamix in the 90s; Baruusa no Fukushuu, a side-scrolling action game for the X68000; Electronic Popple, an amusingly goofy Korean beat-em-up; and Giftpia, a Japan-only Gamecube from the guys that would eventually develop Chibi Robo, and has that same outright bizarreness to it. They also created the (similarly Japan-only) Captain Rainbow for the Wii, which Nintendo silently buried before focusing on exploiting its franchises for the dozenth time (although doing it reasonably well, at least) and ignoring anything that isn't guaranteed to sell a million copies. Oh, and the weekly kusoge is Battle Construction Vehicles, a...construction vehicle battle simulator where you can attack your opponent with giant bees. You may remember it being posted on the blog a few years back, but something this bizarre is worth catalouging for the ages.

11/18

The fourth part of the Ultima article is now up - since the main series is covered, this one focuses on the various sub-series and spinoffs. These include the Worlds of Adventure games, which featured pulp novel-inspired settings like prehistoric islands and martian landscapes; the Runes of Virtue series, simplified (but fun) versions for the Game Boy; and, of course, the incredibly influential Ultima Underworld series, being one of the first true 3D free roaming RPGs.

Beyond Ultima, we have three sort of lesser known shooters: Eliminate Down, the pricey but well designed Mega Drive entry; Bio Hazard Battle, featuring bugs and all manners of creepy crawleys; and Imperium, a vertical shooter with an experience point-based power up system. And continuing our fascination with Konami Famicom titles, we also have a look at Dragon Scroll, the company's valiant attempt at a Zelda clone. Your Weekly Kusoge is Voyeur, one of the many awful FMV games featuring tackily implemented "adult" themes, "gameplay" in the loosest of sense of the word. And this thing was supposed to be one of the highlights of the Phillips CDi!

11/14

A quick update here: Shinobi for the 3DS is coming out in North America tomorrow, so we've updated our Shinobi article to not only include a review of the game, but also bolster the previous article, which was initially written five years ago. It's got substantially more screenshots now, especially in comparing the many variations of The Revenge of Shinobi, plus nicer PS2 screens and slightly extended write-ups.

Also, we're running another video game music voting poll, this time for Western video game music. Looking at the results of the Top 1000 VGM poll, there was a distinct lack of Western composed music, comprising only about 10% of the total songs. This doesn't mean that Western VGM is inferior, but just that it's not as widely known amongst VGM fans. This poll will try to fix that! The goal is to highlight some of the music that got passed over last time around - C64 stuff, Amiga music, adventure games, RTSs and RPGs, any number of awesome PC CD-ROM redbook tracks, recent games (indie or big-time) and so forth. The process is mostly the same as before, though we're limited the selection to 50 songs this time. You can check out the forum thread for voting rules and instructions. (You can also e-mail your vote if you don't want to sign up for the forums.) It's running until Friday, December 2nd, so sort through your music again and let's find some cool music to bring to the forefront!

11/9

I had meant to do a mini-update with a few spooky-themed games for Halloween, except a bizarre snowstorm that tore through the northeast US left me without proper internet for a number of days. My town actually delayed the festivities until the weekend due to the horrendous amount of downed trees and power lines, so please accept these slightly late entries: Harvester, a fantastically depraved adventure game that has slightly more heart than its schlocky exterior suggests; and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which covers the controversial Atari 2600 and its more recent mobile outing. Both attracted some controversry back in the day, which might seem silly now - the Atari 2600 just didn't have the graphical prowess to create anything that didn't look ridiculous, and Harvester was immediately written off by gamers and press since it was delayed for so long. We also have a review of Deathtrap Dungeon, mostly known for its ludicrously designed heroine developed after the success of Tomb Raider, but is also based on a series of books by Ian Livingstone. We've also posted the third installment of Ultima, covering the rest of the core series, including VII (both Black Gate and Serpent Isle), VII and IX. It's sort of tragic that the most influential series in computer role playing perished with such a sad final product, but such is the result of the larger corporate influence on the marketplace.

On another note, "demoscene" is a word that's occasionally bandied about on the site - the gist of it involves homebrew coders pushing the hardware in crazy directions just for the sake of it, but this Introduction to the Demoscene article helps outline its origins, as well as some of its effects on gaming, modern and otherwise. I also translated Que Pasa, Perro? into English and put it up for download. It really is meant to be played in Spanish, because the deliberate linguistic obfuscation is one of the major points of the game, but I understand if people don't feel like brushing up a foreign language to play a goofy little text adventure (albeit a goofy little text adventure I'm quite proud of.) It also has a TVTropes page, thanks to one of the awesome folks that gave it a go. Your Weekly Kusoge is Codename Eagle, the predecessor to the Battlefield games, and one that happens to be fantastic amounts of fun just based on how terribly glitch it is.

Wizorb, the retro-style brick breaker reviewed last update, was relased on the PC earlier this week, and is avaiable for a few bucks at GamersGate. It controls quite nicely with the mouse, giving more precise control than the Xbox analog pad, and is well worth grabbing. And finally, derboo's fan translation of the Korean PC RPG Romance of the Forgotten Kingdom has been released!

10/29

We've actually got three (3) feature-type articles this update! First off is Que Pasa, Perro?, an early 80s-style graphic text adventure, which is downloadable and completely playable. It's entirely in Spanish, but also ridiculously silly. The 1000 Top Video Game Music Tracks Of All Time per our poll last month has also been collected together into a proper page, complete with Youtube links. I initially had a plan to assemble MP3s for all them, build a Youtube playlist, and write brief descriptions for each of the Top 100, and that may yet happen, but it's not going to be for a good awhile. And also, we have a new running feature about Video Game Books, where we review...well, video game books, old and new, English and other languages. There's not nearly enough proper books devoted to video games (that's why we wrote one), so they deserve to be catalogued a bit better than they are now.

For proper articles, the next installment in Ultima is up, which covers Quest of the Avatar (IV) through The False Prophet (VI). The earlier games have also been updated with some new pictures. Faselei! is a unique strategy game for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which is thankfully available in English despite (apparently) not having seen a proper release in North America due to the total (and unfortunate) failure of the system. Neugier is one of the many action-RPGs for the Super Famicom, this one developed by the infamous Wolf Team, although this one never reached the US. Mission: Impossible (1998) covers the N64/PSOne game based on the Tom Cruise movie, and while it's not great, it is a good example of a pre-Metal Gear Solid stealth game. And Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom is a silly adventure game from Hudson, mostly known to English gamers for the NES port, but was actually a PC-based text adventure from years before. The graphic style is absolutely bonkers, similar to Que Pasa, Perro?

Our Spotlight Article is Radiant Silvergun, which was released on the XBLA a few weeks back. Apparently it's not doing so well? It's unfortunate, because it's a great game, but perhaps the 1200 MS price point was too high, especially since Ikaruga is not only newer but also slightly better, and still goes for 800. Nevertheless, that's still at least 1/10th of the price it had costs to get a legit copy of the Saturn game, which is an insane bargain still. And Your Weekly Kusoge is Sprung, a dating sim released at the launch of the DS, and is easily the most embarassing game that I own that isn't Bubsy 3D.

10/22

I've been wanting to cover more classic CRPGs recently, and thanks to some awesome contributors, this is now coming to pass. To follow up on the Might and Magic article from the past few weeks, we now have the first part of an article on Ultima, the progenator of the genre and inspiration for hundreds of games. It's a massive series that we'll be posting updates for weekly, as right now it covers the intro and the first three games.

Following that up are some single game articles. Wizorb is a brick-breaker that was recently released on the XBLIG, which adds some RPG elements to make it stand out from Arkanoid, and features a cool post-retro graphical style. Zombie Nation is an NES "classic" where you control a disembodied samurai head against marauding invaders who are terrorizing the United States, including a Mesuda-ized version of the State of Liberty. And SPLAT'ERS is a very early first person shooter, predating Wolfenstein 3D and available only on the Macintosh, which shows some of the roots of what is now the most popular genre in gaming today.

We also have a feature article dubbed the Video Game Casebook, which is a series of blog articles focused around the issues of researching video game history. Your weekly crap game is Ground Zero Texas, one of the Sega CD's many dire FMV games, although here it gets a fairly even-handed assestment despite being largely insufferable. And I can't remember if we've made Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky a feature article before, but we're doing it anyway. Last week Siliconera posted an interview saying that the PSP game, released a few months ago, hasn't quite gotten the sales numbers to convince their investors to localize the sequel. So, you should buy it if you remotely have any interest in Japanese RPGs. It's classic-styled through and through, but it's better than most that come out nowadays, and is a welcome antithesis to anyone who complains about the dire writing so prominent in Japanese games.

10/7

So that Dark Souls game came out this week, didn't it? I still have to get around to properly playing its predecessor, Demon's Souls, since my PS3 died right when I first started it and never got back into it. But anyone with an interest in either game should read up on King's Field, the first person action-RPG from whence these games sprung. Originating on the original PlayStation, they're very...well, old and clunky, but as usual they're interesting from a historical perspective. And if you want even older RPGs, we've finished up the Might and Magic article, covering all nine games in the main series. Look for more computer RPG articles in the near future!

Our Spotlight Article is for Dead or Alive, which recently saw a new-ish entry on the 3DS, and will apparently be getting a fifth installment soon. Your Weekly Kusoge is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the iOS, a shamefully bootlegged product that made it past Apple's ace product approval squad and stayed there until the blogosphere discovered it. Of course, those guys didn't play the game and just quoted the few user reviews on the App Store - we hear at HG101 took the bullet for our readers and spent the $5 on it, just so you could mock it with us!

Also, the video game music poll finished up last week. You can check out the preliminary results here, breaking down the top 1000 tracks, although in another week or two we'll have a proper article that isn't just a forum post with Youtube links. The gist is, according to our readers, the two best video game songs of all time are Time's Scar (the opening theme) from Chrono Cross, and Dr. Wily Stage 1 & 2 from Mega Man 2.

9/26

We've been posting bits and pieces of it over the past few weeks, but the 21st Century Pinball article is now complete! It's eight pages long and covers over twenty games, many of which share various tables with each other but ported across various platforms. There's a lot of stuff here, so fans of PC pinball will find some good reading!

Otherwise, there's lot of under-the-radar stuf with this update. Eternam is a strange French adventure game from Infogrames, easily up there with Coktel's works for flat out weirdness; Floating Runner, a flawed yet compelling early 3D platformer for the PSOne; The Rapid Angel, a 2D PSOne sidescroller that recently appeared on the NA PSN thanks to Monkey Paw games; and Battletanx, a short series of (mostly 3D) tank combat simulators. And Your Weekly Kusoge is Big Trouble in Little China, which is incredibly tragic given the strength of the license. It was also surprising that this game existed - the British micros are a treasure trove for tie-ins with 80s movies and cartoons, but most of them really just encourage weeping.

Oh, and you've got four more days (or so) to pick out 100 of your favorite VGM tunes and post them in this thread. I've done some preliminary tallying, and so far the most popular VGM song of all time is Dr. Wily's Stage from Mega Man II, followed up by various songs from Chrono Cross. I predict the total list will contain at least 500 songs, and I'll still be keeping track of all of the songs that were voted on but didn't rank, so there will be an absolute ton of songs worth checking out.

9/13

Toejam and Earl is such a befuddling game. Most mascot-type characters of the era starred in side scrolling platformers, while these two goofy aliens starred in a bizarre pseudo Rogue-like, a term I wasn't familiar with when I first played it at the age of thirteen, but nonetheless came to appreciate. Of course, the sequel went a more typical route (though still quite different from similar titles) and isn't as fondly remembered for it. There was a third game for the Xbox, though no one much cared for it.

Picking up the shooter coverage this week is Sol Divide, the one Psikyo shooter that is entirely unlike all of the other games the company put out, and is generally hated on for it. That doesn't entirely mean it's understood - it's an ugly, strange mess of a game that almost flatly deemphasizes shooting over melee combat, but it is an interesting one, at least, especially with the good-idea-bad-execution RPG-type story mode in its PlayStation and Saturn ports. This one did make it to the US thanks to budget publisher XS Games, although it was a dirty hack job that took out half the dialogue, forgot to translate the rest, and chopped out the ability to save your game, making the RPG mode entirely useless.

I'm also putting up three articles from the adventure game book. One of the reasons I'd started playing practically every adventure game I could find was to hopefully stumble upon something that was as good as the LucasArts classics. Sadly, nothing quite reached the same heights, but that doesn't meant there weren't any decent games. Flight of the Amazon Queen is a goofy Indiana Jones knockoff; Teenagent, despite the goofy game, is an eminently amusing game from Poland; and The Gene Machine, the final game by the developers of last week's kusoge, is the funniest take on Victorian England I've ever seen. The first two are easily accessible nowdays, with Amazon Queen being both freeware on the PC and available on the Apple App Store, and Teenagent available for free from GOG.com. The Gene Machine is lost to time, however, but it's well worth tracking down regardless.

Our kusoge this week is Lifeline, which attempts to represent the future of gaming by making you command the onscreen character with words rather than joystick movements. Despite its forward thinking, it totally fails just because the technology isn't even remotely up to snuff. Too bad.