Once I finished the review for Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast, I started looking at where I would go next. The next game in the Shenmue series (Shenmue 2) was never released in the United States, but was ported to the Xbox in 2002. There is no easy way to play the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 with a US console. You can either mod your Dreamcast to play imports, and get your hands on the European version of the game, or find a copy of the game without region protection that will work on your Dreamcast.
In any case, for most people it is much easier to play the Xbox version of Shenmue 2. The Xbox version of the game is basically the same as the Dreamcast one that was available outside the United States. With some very minor graphical updates and english audio. Check out the video below to see a split screen comparison of the two versions.
I have changed my encoding workflow for this video. The old encoding system was introducing red flashes into the video, which was really anoying. This new system also crops the video to a better aspect ratio, so enjoy! Please let me know if you have any problems with the new videos.
Recently, the composite audio jack on my NES console broke, after soldering a RCA cable onto the audio header so I could get sound again, I decided to look into buying a NES clone, to help reduce every day wear and tear on my aging console. I picked up a Retro Duo NES clone at a local retailer and have been comparing its performance with my original NES. So far, I have come to the conclusion that this clone provides a passable NES experience for average users, but will fall short for those who have become familiar with the way their games play on official hardware.
I was able to pick up this clone on sale for $35. For that price, in addition to the console and AC adapter, it came with two SNES style controllers and a nice AV cable with three composite and one s-video cable. The first thing I noticed after removing it from the packaging was that the build quality felt very cheap. But I can't complain for $35. The controllers are no different in their build quality. The directional pad is very stiff and one of the controllers seems to have stopped working after an hour of play testing. Fortunately, this machine can use normal SNES controllers, so I plan on picking up two of those to replace the packaged controllers. While I would prefer to use the official NES controllers, the ones that come packaged with the Retro Duo are at least usable, even if they are a bit klugey.
Connecting the AV cables and power adapter was no different than any other piece of equipment. Although I could not get the s-video out to display in anything other than black and white. It may be that my receiver does not like the s-video connection that came with the console, but composite video is more than enough to play NES games. One thing that stood out to me about this console is that it splits the mono audio out of the NES to both speakers, saving the need to use a splitter.
One of the few advantages of the Retro Duo over the NES, is that when you insert a cartridge and hit the power button, you can be almost certain that the game will boot. Unlike the NES, which takes some fiddling around with at times to get games to boot. Part of this is because the Retro Duo does not bother with the copy protection checks that were in the official NES, which prevent the console from booting if the cart is not in the slot just perfect. The other part, is because the Retro Duo takes a death grip to your cart. There is no eject button, like the one you would find on an official Super Nintendo, so you will have to yank the cart out of the console to swap out the game. Not sure if this death grip is good for the cart, but it makes it so games boot nearly 100% of the time.
But even if the game boots, that does not mean that it will work correctly. Since the Retro Duo and all the other NES clones out there are basically just glorified emulators, compatibility is a problem. So far I have tested; Snake Rattle N' Roll, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda 2, Base Wars and Earthbound Zero. All of which worked, with minor glitches that would only be noticed by someone who had played the same game on an official console. The biggest issue is sound, some sounds have noticeable noise in them, while others sound very quiet and some don't render at all. For example; In base wars, the music sounds staticy on very short or notes at a higher pitch. At the end of a level in Super Mario Bros.3, as the score is being tallied, rather than hear a rapid succession of beeps as the score increases, the console just renders out one single long beep. Also in Mario Bros. 3 as Raccoon Mario, when pressing the A button to hover, the sound does not play, or is barely audible. In base Wars, the voice of the umpire is more distorted than it sounds on the NES in addition to being much quieter. For the most part, the only people who would even notice these things are those who have played these games extensively on the NES and actually care about the complete audio experience.
From the selection I took to test the Retro Duo, most of the graphical glitches were also minor. The most noticeable thing was that blues look somewhat purple, especially in skies and water. Other colors like greens, yellows and whites also look muddy and unclear. Edges of some sprites and text also looked distorted on the clone. But I did not experience anything that prevented me from playing the games. From this small selection of games, the clone does a good enough job of rendering the graphics to get most players through their play sessions, but don't expect anything quite like an official NES.
Feel free to take a look at the screen shots and videos that accompany this article, to help you make the decision to buy a Retro Duo, or go hunt down a NES. Either way, they are not difficult to find and only have about a $20 price difference, depending on where you shop. It is worth mentioning that this system also plays Super Nintendo games in addition to NES games (although I have not had much opportunity to see how well it performs for SNES games, except for a brief test of Star Fox in the store where I bought the machine).
If you want a true NES experience, to play the games exactly the way they were meant to be rendered, buy an NES and take care of it. If you really don't care if you are getting a 100% accurate representation then the Retro Duo may fit your needs. Personally, I am going to continue to use my Frankensteined NES until it decides to kick the bucket. I will use the Retro Duo if I am heading over to a friend's place, or have someone coming over who has a habit of breaking things, but thats about it.
Searching for baby animals gets real old real fast and multiplayer is nothing to write home about.
Full Review
Also available for the Playstation 2 and PC, Fur Fighters is a third person shooter that feels like Acclaims answer to Rare's Banjo Kazooie on the Nintendo 64...except, you recover baby animals rather than puzzle pieces and collect gold triangles rather than gold notes. But, Banjo did not carry shotguns and grenade launchers with him in Banjo-Kazooie, so at least Fur Fighters brings something new to the experience.
I went through three different opinions of Fur Fighters while playing the game. The first of which was: what in the world is this? When the game starts, the Fur Fighters are going about their daily lives on their island in the middle of nowhere. The group is made up of a collection of different animals and their families, including a dog, cat, kangaroo, penguin, raccoon and dragon. The afternoon is interrupted as the children from each animal family are kidnapped by General Veggoh, who apparently is the offspring of a hammerhead shark and a bear (or something). He makes up some excuse for not killing the Fur Fighters then and there and never makes it clear why he is taking their children in the first place. As far as I can tell, Veggoh wanted to piss off the Fur Fighters so someone could have an excuse to make a game.
After playing through the tutorial and getting into the actual game, my opinion gradually shifted towards enjoying my play through. The graphics look good for a Dreamcast title, some of the geometry is a bit clunky and some textures are used a bit too often, but for a nine year old game, they hold up well enough that I did not find myself thinking about it very often. The sound and music is also about the same; I would have liked a few more music tracks to fill out some of the environments. But for the most part, the different areas of the game world have unique music and usually by the time you get tired of hearing one of the tracks looping for the 100th time, it is time to move on to the next area.
Eventually though, I reached the point where I wanted to stop playing the game and play Banjo-Kazooie instead. As I moved further into the game, the number of enemies the game throws at you increases. This is a problem because the controls in the game are a pain to work with. Looking around with the joystick, pressing the buttons to move and strafe and using the triggers to jump and fire becomes difficult when trying to dispatch a room of 15 enemies who have you surounded. I found myself either moving too much and shooting too little or standing in one place trying to take out enemies. I also started to lose interest in the game as I reached the later levels, when retrieving the baby animals became a huge chore. For some unkown reason, in order to save one of the children, you have to rescue them while playing as their parent character. So, for instance; if you want to save a penguin baby, you have to go find the Fur Fighter of the same species and use them to save the baby. At one point, I got fed up with this convoluted puzzle and started using a FAQ. Collecting most of the babies boils down to the following; go get this Fur Fighter, then go flip this switch, then find another Fur Fighter to flip a different switch that only they can get to and then backtrack to find yet another Fur Fighter so you can at last save the baby sitting in the middle of nowhere.
Fur Fighters boils down to a Banjo-Kazooie adventure / scavenger hunt game with shotguns and grenade launchers. If that sounds like a winning combination to you then you may enjoy this game more than I did. But my official recommendation is to play Shenmue on your Dreamcast before resorting to Fur Fighters.
You may as well just go on E-Bay and buy it now. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is one of the best games on the NES, it is incredibly addictive, and it has the best one song soundtrack for any game ever. I recently found Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! on E-Bay for about 10 bucks with shipping, and since I’d been looking for it (and it usually costs around $25) I went ahead and bought it. Back in the day when Nintendo games could be found on every street corner, I sold my NES and all my games for practically nothing and I’m seriously kicking myself now because all the stuff that was easy to find and dirt cheap is worth a fair amount of money now (which you’ll find out if you ever have to buy any retro console games, especially the cartridge ones). I played this game extensively when I was younger, and trust me in saying that it has not lost a thing despite its age.
In Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, you are the boxer Little Mac, a 107 pound 17 year old, who is probably about 4 feet tall (everyone you fight is gigantic by comparison…supposedly Little Mac was made to be so small because the NES didn’t have the power to render the human player as translucent like the arcade game did). You begin your fighting career against the weakest person possible (Glass Joe, who’s 110 pounds with a record of 1-99), all the way up to the Dream Fight of Mike Tyson (from when he basically devoured everyone he fought…he had knockouts in his first 19 fights, 12 in the first round!). While those who don’t remember how Mike Tyson was at the beginning of his career probably find it funny that the game is named after him, it’s time for a little trip onto youtube to see why he has a game named after him (or if you want to go for laughs, search for Mike Tyson quotes on youtube…NSFW).
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! has very simple gameplay, but that is a large part of its appeal. Because it is on the NES, there are only so many buttons that you can use. A is a left body punch, B is a right body punch, and you add in a directional pad up to make them throw a head punch. Push down to block, left and right to dodge in that direction, and that is basically everything you’ll ever use. The game also has a star system, where you get a star for punching your opponents at the right time (such as right before they throw a big punch, or if you surprise them). They are few and far between later in the game, and hitting Start when you have a star allows you to do your powerful, wind-up special punch (which does more damage but takes a little while to throw). This limited control system does nothing to limit the quality of the game however.
Each character is distinctly different and each has a distinct punching pattern and style. MTPO is a game of patterns...different characters have different punches, punch order, and different tells. King Hippo blocks everything until he flashes red when trying to do a power punch. The trick is understanding this…punch him in the face when he flashes, then repeatedly in the stomach to damage him. Piston Honda moves his eyebrows when he’s going to throw a straight punch, and flashes when he’s going to throw a hook. Finally (if you get there) Mike Tyson flashes or winks his eye (left eye for a left punch, right for a right punch) before he decapitates you and eats your children. Each characters pattern is very distinct, and later characters make life much more difficult by having tells that occur almost in synch with their attacks. Bald Bull spinning his hands super fast and swinging is tough to dodge unless you have excellent reactions, and punching Mike Tyson is a crapshoot and involves anticipating when he’ll start to punch. They all follow patterns, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard anyways (and good luck living long enough to discover Mike Tyson’s pattern).
The actual rules of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out are surprisingly simple (although not exactly carbon copies of real boxing). Each round lasts three minutes, and there are only three rounds. Three knockdowns in a round are a TKO no matter what, a ten-count is a KO, and decisions can be had only if you have a set amount of points (awarded on punches and tallied below the health meters) that are never revealed in the game (look online to find out exactly how many, or just knock everyone out). It goes away from boxing in that the clock stops when someone is knocked down, but this is really just so it is more possible to get TKO’s. In between rounds, your opponents will say some fairly ridiculous things (sample Mike Tyson Line: "They say I can't lose...I say you can't win!"), and you can get a general idea of how you're doing based on your characters picture between rounds...eye's swollen shut, you have problems. Likewise if they have their eye covered by tape you have done some damage and knocked him down. The health bars are standard stuff…however having full health matters little if you get lit up by a special punch by anyone Bald-Bull and after (about a third through the game). Because most fighters have moments of weakness after missing with special punches, countering after their miss causes more damage, or (in some cases) knocks them down right away. Bald-Bulls Bull Charge attack will knock you down if he does it successfully, but if you punch him in the stomach at just the right time, it’s a knockdown every time. It’s a high risk/high reward situation if timed incorrectly, but sometimes that’s the only way to win.
In spite of its simplicity, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is an excellent game of boxing…just don’t expect any multiplayer. It runs lightning fast on the NES…in fact compared to running it on an emulator, you’re better off playing it on an NES. The NES controllers have lightning fast response, letting you dodge and throw punches the instant you push (it seems even a good controller on the pc still can’t match that responsiveness). My minor complaint about Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is the fact that I can’t beat Mike Tyson, even after all the times I’ve fought him in the game…he is probably the most difficult boss in any game I’ve ever played. In the first 90 seconds of the first round, he knocks you down in one punch, which is a problem since he has the shortest tells in the game…you need lightning fast reflexes to dodge him for very long. I’ve beaten him in an emulator only, by saving often and reloading after every knock down. The video included was made on the NES, recorded on a DVD recorder (so I didn’t cheat, except for using the Mike Tyson code a few times after getting killed by him over and over again…fyi 007-373-5963).
Overall, Mike Tyson is in my top 3 of NES games (behind Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3). It is an amazingly addictive, fun game. I’ve played it over and over again to figure out the boxers’ patterns so that I can beat them more efficiently (or just so I can beat them). After dodging Super Macho Man’s tornado-like punch where he spins a punch at you anywhere from 3-7 times, you’ll appreciate the difficulty of the game, even if you know all the patterns. Mike Tyson is epically tough, and if you beat him on the NES, congratulations, you have done what I could not do despite having fought him hundreds of times. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is simply put my favorite boxing game ever, despite its dated graphics and lack of complexity….sometimes simple controls and premise (figure out the punch patterns) mask the depth and how difficult a game really is. The complexity is hidden under the surface of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!...you’ll notice it when you get later in the game, being forced to act on minute punch tells, dodging or blocking, and then pick the proper hand and punch to throw to do the most damage possible. This game has the sharpest and most responsive controls of perhaps any game I’ve ever played, and you will not be disappointed playing it. This game is simply put, a must buy if you have an NES, even if you don’t like boxing games. Time to dust off the NES and cause Mike Tyson to go into retirement.
If you are thinking that No One Lives Forever sounds like the title of a James Bond movie, you wouldn’t be far off. The classic James Bond movies almost demand to be made fun of and imitated, and people have taken every opportunity to do so (if you don’t believe me, read this Wikipedia entry on James Bond parodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_parodies). Typically it would seem that spoofs of James Bond are very hit and miss, or age poorly. In the case of Casino Royale (the David Niven/Peter Sellers satire Bond film), the film is so off kilter it is very difficult to understand what the heck is going on (and it seems like they ran out of money towards the end of the movie). In the case of Austin Powers you have stuff that was very funny at the time of its release but has aged poorly…it’s almost cringe worthy material now. No One Lives Forever is heavily influenced by the early James Bond movies, yet has a very obvious flair that makes it different in a very good way.
Unlike the above mentioned film spoofs, NOLF does a gender switch on the title character. Cate Archer is theprotagonist in NOLF; she’s a past thief who becomes a UNITY agent (she’s a British secret agent). She gets tossed into real missions by those in charge rather reluctantly when several agents are killed (thus leaving UNITY shorthanded). The instant you start the game, there is one thing that sets it apart from probably any other game. You actually want to watch the cutscenes. In almost any other game, the cutscenes are basically reasons to figure out how to skip watching them…in NOLF they are not only necessary to understand what’s going on, but they are actually entertaining! They are built and shot more like movies than the typical cutscene, and the voice acting (both within the cutscenes and within the game) is excellent (which, after playing through both games, is certainly on par with that in Freedom Force, if not as over the top). Even the enemy conversations that go on when you can’t be seen (while you sneak around the corner to accomplish your objectives) are usually funny enough to make you crack up in laughter (watch the goat video for proof).
No One Lives Forever is actually a fairly long game. It took me somewhere between 25-30 hours to complete, and if you are new to the game it will probably take longer. The missions are very different in their objectives and locales. There are scuba diving missions, missions in outer-space, missions in the mountains, etc. Usually there is more than one way to complete a mission…as a spy you have certain gadgets on hand that allow you to get around unnoticed by security cameras. You have camera disablers, and a powder that makes bodies disappear, along with other unusual spy gadgets that may come in handy.
No One Lives Forever is a shooter yes, but it is also takes heavy influences from the thief series. Sneaking around is the MO in many cases, and being sneaky is rewarded with better end of the level spy rankings.However, sneaking around without being seen is very difficult, and in the missions that force you to do something unseen (or more accurately, without an alarm being raised) you may find yourself getting increasingly frustrated. Usually you can get away with killing enemies in these levels if you use a silenced weapon (and the bodies aren’t seen by a security camera). The stealth levels are incredibly difficult, and are the one negative of the game. You may play them multiple times before finally being successful. Interestingly enough, while for most games I play with the speakers blaring, this is a game that almost requires headphones to catch everything (preferably ear covering ones). You simply do not catch all the sounds of people walking around, cameras whirring, and funny conversations without headphones. I was prepared to give this game a lower grade because of its difficulty when I realized that my speakers weren’t giving me the whole story and popped on headphones…they make a huge difference, and make those sneaky levels more manageable.
No James Bond spoof would be complete without gadgets, so of course NOLF is full of them. As mentioned, you have the camera disabler and body removing powder. You also have a barrette that can pick locks and be used to poison enemies with cyanide, to go along with a lighter that can be used to break unpickable locks. You have perfumes that cause instant sleep on those who walk through its mist, and you have a robotic dog that distracts guard dogs. There are so many gadgets that you can’t carry them all, so the game forces you to choose what you take with you on missions (or you can choose the default equipment). It shows you how to use new gadgets in a test lab (similar to Q’s lab) before a mission starts throughout the game.
The story is typical spy stuff, but extremely well thought out as far as continuity goes. You are chasing down information on H.A.R.M., an evil organization that (you find out) is using a biological agents to create human bombs. You have to do everything from figuring out the brains behind the operation through interrogation (you question an idiot that claims he hunts lions…then through further questioning you discover that he actually uses a .22 rifle, shoots them from just a few feet away 20 + times, and they are in cages…), general detective work, and killing lots of lackeys. A couple of the missions/gameplay sequences are straight out of Moonraker (which is probably the campiest of the James Bond films, but ithas some very entertaining action sequences); at one point, you jump out of a plane in an attempt to catch someone else below you that has a parachute. There is also the deal of the escaping from an exploding space ship while shooting people WITH LASERS that screams James Bond, but luckily the scenes in the game aren’t just throw-ins…they fit extremely well into the game, and (save for lacking Jaws with the blond girl 3 feet shorter than him) hold up favorably to the actual scenes (and probably fit better to boot).
I went back and forth on the grade for this game many times…it is at timesfrustratingly difficult, and there are a couple of gameplay mechanics that could be improved upon. You can’t move bodies the old fashioned way (Cate looks like she has good “leg” muscles…she should be able to drag bodies across the floor regardless of size); you are forced to use body removing spray, which you may or may not have. As mentioned before, the missions that require no “sounding” of the alarm are very tough and may have you looking for the cheat to go to the nextlevel (I’ll save you time…mpmaphole). However when looking over the entire body of the game, these flaws are minor. Unlike a lot of people who do reviews (PC Gamer, I’m looking at you), a game does not have to be perfect to get a perfect score. I mean, they gave the Orange Box a 94…reviewing should not be the journalistic equivalent of the Windows Experience Index where the lowest score for any of the parts equals the score for the whole. I have played some really good games and some games so painfully awful that evenmentioning them hurts (just watch the Pen Pen Trilcelon video, and when you wake up in 2 hours after trying to kill the massive migraine you can fire off the meanly worded email to my inbox). A game does not have to be perfect to get a perfect score…you score it on your slider of what the best of the best is. Having played too many games to count (the majority being pretty bad) I know what I like and what I don’t, and No One Lives Forever is very near the top of the pile.
