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Retro Review: Theme Hospital
Bullfrog's Theme Hospital was a game that really shouldn't have worked. I mean really, building operating theatres? Hiring doctors? Cleaning up vomit? That doesn't sound like fun at all. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like a job... at a hospital.But fun it was. And if you read my latest retro review at Games On Net, you'll discover that administering a hospital is still fun, even today. No really, it is.
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Retro Review: Rise of the Triad
In 1995, Apogee Software's Rise of the Triad exploded onto the PC gaming community... in much the same way that a human head explodes when squished in a vice. The game was seriously bloody, and featured more "ludicirious gibs" than a butcher's shop.
I recently re-booted the original Rise of the Triad for Games On Net to see if this gaming gorefest is still worthy of attention in 2010. Read the blood-soaked review here.
--> posted 04/02/2010
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KillScreen Poetry is alive!! (...just)
Readers, I apologise. The love and care I once harboured for this blog has clearly dissipated of late. No updates for months; gaps in the layout not fixed; the supposedly "regular" KillScreen Vault videos only lasted one measly screening. For shame. This website was supposed to be my prized virtual trophy... but recently it has become neglected and abused, much like the women involved in Tiger Woods' sex escapades... but even worse.
The reason for this? I'm afraid I've been writing for another website. I know, I know - it's journalistic adultery. But this other website is so much sexier and -- unlike this cheap blog -- it's actually professional. It's called Games On Net. And I think you should check it out.
But I still have a soft-spot for KillScreen Poetry. So I've decided to cast a Phoenix Down and resurrect this haggard old beast from the depths of the Web 2.0 graveyard. From now on, I'll be posting links to my musings on Games On Net... not really a legitimate "post" i know, but it's better than nothing.
However, before these new posts begin, let's get up-to-date. Most of my articles for Games On Net have been "retro reviews" of PC Games. You know the deal: a mixture of reminiscing about the greatness of old games, and then harshly paying the crap out of these games for being... well, old.
So far I've covered the following games (click on links to read):
- Fallout
- Aliens vs Predator
- Leisure Suit Larry
- Death Rally
- Simon The Sorcerer
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Grand Theft Auto
- Police Quest
I've also written a very Killenscreen-esq yarn about The Most Awkward Romantic Moments in Video Games, a review of Left 4 Dead 2, and an article about the best downloadable levels for the original Left 4 Dead. See, I have been busy.
So if you've stumbled upon this blog after Googling "kill poetry" or something equally disturbing... and you feel jipped that there's nothing of recent value on this site, then click through to those links.
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Top 5 Strangest Japanese Nintendo DS Commercials
Last month, KillScreen Poetry looked at the weirdest Japanese TV commercials for the Nintendo Wii. This time, I thought I would turn my attention to the Wii's portable sibling: the Nintendo DS.
As most gamers are aware, there are quite a few bizarre Japanese DS games out there. The stylus control of the DS just seems to encourage developers to come up with ridiculous and often stupid ideas.
But I guess these weird games need advertising just like any other game. And what's the best way to promote a strange game? You make a strange commercial, of course.
What follows are the top five strangest DS ads to appear on Japanese TV. Enjoy...
#5: Minna no Doubutsuen
The game: A zoo simulator.
The ad: Features a scary man dressed as a penguin, then as a panda, and finally as a bear... doing inappropriate things in front of kids.
#4: Mario Kart DS
The game: It's Mario Kart, of course!
The ad: Ever wondered what Mario would look like if he was French?
#3: Dragon Tamer Sound Spirits
The game: A fantasy RPG game.
The ad: Features a guy who will never win American Idol.
#2: Egg Monster Hero
The game: A real-time strategy game.
The ad: Shows a lot of kids... er... "scratching" themselves.
#1: Dragon Quest IX
The game: One of the best selling DS games of all time. Dragon Quest is a famous RPG franchise in Japan.
The ad: Features the popular Japanese boyband "SMAP"... and makes no sense whatsoever.
Posted by ShaolinCowboy 09/0/09
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KillScreen Vault #1: Freeway
Welcome to a new regular feature here at KillScreen Poetry... the KillScreen Vault! Each month we'll be dusting off a forgotten game from yesteryear, and making a video about it.
This month, we look at Activision's Freeway for the Atari 2600.
When this game was released back in 1981, many accused Activision of simply developing a rip-off of Sega's Frogger.
The question is: is Freeway the most blatant case of gamin plagiarism in history? Click below to find out...KillScreen Vault Episode #1: Freeway
Posted by ShaolinCowboy 08/19/09
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Spare change? Buy Half-Life for $3.39!
Now this is a retro gaming sale. Valve has discounted all of its Half-Life games on Steam by a whopping 66%. This means you can buy two of the greatest games ever made, Half-Life (1998) and Half-Life 2 (2004) for about the price of a McDonald's Meal.
The original Half-Life is going for the bargain-basement price of $3.39, while the sequel will set you back $6.79.
But if that's still stretching your wallet too far, you can go the ultra-cheap option: Half-Life 2 Deathmatch is only $1.69.
I'm surprised Visa/Mastercard even allow just stupidly small transactions.
For the full list of cheap games, go here. The sale is for this weekend only.
Posted by ShaolinCowboy on 15/08/09
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Cold War Gaming in the Soviet Union
It's March 1983. Cold war tensions between the US and the Soviet Union are reaching boiling point again. President Ronald Regan fronts a packed public assembly in Florida and denounces the Soviet regime as an "evil empire". He says the US will develop a "Star Wars" missile defence system. The Soviets respond by threatening a new arms race.
The world looks like it's on the brink of nuclear Armageddon... again.
And what is the average Russian teenager doing under this threat of impending doom? Well... he's playing video games actually.
It's a little know fact, but video game development was thriving in the Soviet Union during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Which is ironic, because everything else about Eastern European communism – the economy, the military, the ideology – was all in severe decline.
According to Wired, most of the 70 or so Soviet video games of the period were designed and developed at secret military bases.
The Soviet Arcade Museum in Moscow has now restored some of these old treasures for people to play again. Some of the games young comrades were playing during this time include:
Gun games...
Aircraft bombing games...
Gun games...
Aircraft shooting games...
Gun games...
Submarine games...
Games that look like Stalinist torture racks...
Gun games...
Wait a second. A theme seems to be developing here. There are no silly games with donkeys throwing barrels. No games with giant centipedes. No games where frogs dodge traffic. No.... Pong?
Just war games. Does this mean the Soviet regime might have actually been using video games to spurn its young comrades on to battle? Remember, during the 1980s, Russia was crushing Eastern European uprisings every few years, had invaded Afghanistan, and was under constant threat from NATO and the US. Were these games just pieces of Soviet propaganda?
It's not a completely ludicrous suggestion. The US Army did it 20 years later when they developed America's Army and sold it commerically (the game lets you can blast Iraqis to your hearts content).
Maybe these games were virutal training sets for young Red Army recruits. Or maybe not. While there are a disturbing number of military titles for such an early era in gaming, there’s also this little gem:
Obviously just a Russian horse picking up tomatoes, right? How cute. Or wait... are they landmines?
(in the interests of objectivity, it should be pointed out that there was an ice hockey game and a basketball game... neither of which featured nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missiles or Stalin screaming “death to capitalist pigs”. So it's probably a far-fetched conspiracy theory).
Posted by ShaolinCowboy 08/04/09
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Slice and dice with Muramasa's 108 swords
We here at KillScreen Poetry love ninja games. Almost as much as zombie games. So we are keeping a particularly close eye on the upcoming Japanese Wii game Muramasa: The Demon Blade.
The 2D platformer is a homage to old school ninja slash 'em ups like Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden. But don't worry, this doesn't mean Murasama has NES-style graphics. Oh no.
Rather, the game is probably one of the Wii's most stylish releases. The graphics are quite similar to the colourful brilliance of Viewtiful Joe... just with a hell of a lot of shurikens flying around the screen.
Murasama has already sold out in Japan. It's due for release in the US this September.
G4TV recently posted an extensive preview of Murasama, which, among other things, reveals the game has 108 swords! Click through to view...
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Top 5 Weirdest Japanese Wii Commercials
The Nintendo Wii's control system may have reinvented the gaming industry, but it's also encouraged some terribly weird games to be created. Particularly in Japan.
Japanese TV isn't "normal" at the best of times. But these strange Wii games still need TV promotion... and how do you promote a weird game? You make an even weirder commercial, of course.
What follows are the top five strangest Wii ads to appear on Japanese TV. Enjoy...
#5: Zaidanhoujin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Kounin Kanken
The game: It's a writing/educational game... I think. And, yes, it's the longest, most convoluted, name I've ever seen for a video game. And, no, Google's translator doesn't know what it means either.
The ad: Features a lot of semi-naked men hugging each other.
#4: Shape Boxing Wii de Enjoy! Diet
The game: A fitness game aimed at women. It's supposed to improve your physique.
The ad: Features a sweaty woman who rips off her clothes and then, in true health-guru style, slams down a massive beer.
#3: Ougon no Kizuna
The game: A fantasy RPG game.
The ad: Makes no sense whatsoever.
#2: Monster Hunter G
The game: One of Japan's most popular games. It's a bit like Pokemon.
The ad: A cat with an acon on its back talks to a crazy-ass pig.
#1: Muscle March
The game: Possibly the strangest game ever created. You wave the Wii-mote in different body-building positions, and then crash through walls.
The ad: The actual TV ad can be found here. But this extended 2-minute trailer is so much better.
Posted by ShaolinCowboy 07/17/09
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Download Daggerfall for free. Hopefully it's bug free too.
It turns out this year is the 15th anniversary of Bethesda Software’s Elder Scrolls series. Who knew? Spanning four games, the franchise is probably best known for its most recent additions: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006).
But the game had its origins back in the mid 1990s, and to celebrate those humble beginnings, Bethesda is giving away Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996) for free on its website. Yes that’s right: free. Not peer-to-peer free. Legit free.
For those of you who missed Daggerfall when it was first released, it was a game of flawed brilliance. It featured one of the largest playing areas ever created, allegedly the size of Great Britain. I never actually tested this claim out myself, by running from one side of the Daggerfall world to the other, but trust me: the game was big.
Unfortunately, however, Daggerfall will probably be best remembered for its bugs. It was one of the most buggy, poorly beta-tested PC games to ever hit the shelves... leaving countless frustrated RPG gamers in its wake.
Bethesda tried its best to rectify the situation. The company released countless patches in the hope of making Daggerfall playable. But, this being 1996 and all, not many people had the internet... so most gamers couldn’t download the patches anyway.
Instead, committed gamers played the game – bugs and all – and gave it the nickname “Buggerfall”.
Every other gaming website seems to be using this anniversary to honour Daggerfall’s brilliance. I thought it might be a good time to instead honour all those goddam bugs... because really, that's what I remember.The Supidest, Most-Ridiculous Daggerfall Bugs
Bug #1: When you first created your Daggerfall character, occasionally he would start the game with -1000 hit points. You would literally have to rest your character for weeks before you could even start playing.
Bug #2: The game would crash randomly. And often. The solution was to save before you did anything. About every 5 minutes seemed to help.
Bug #3: Supposedly the game’s likelihood of crashing was directly related to how many items you carried. The more items in your inventory, the greater the chance of a crash.
Bug #4: The game would also crash in direct proportion to how many quests you accepted. So if you were greedy with your quests, you would pay the price.
Bug #5: When you had a bow equipped, monsters would often equip the exact same bow. Even if that bow had special powers (for instance, even if it killed with a single arrow). The lesson? Never equip a bow.
Bug #6: Arrows could shoot through walls and doors. More reason not to equip a bow.
Bug #7: If you wanted to steal items from a store, all you needed to do was walk into a shop, wait until nightfall, and then save your game. The shopkeeper would strangely disappear, and you could help yourself to anything for free.
Bug #8: You would often fall through random holes in dungeon floors. “Often” as in every dungeon... more than once.
Bug #9: The worst bug of all. The game was actually released with a bug stopping you from completing the main plotline. The game would always crash when you reached a certain point (I can’t remember the exact point, but according to this old review – it was when you avenged Lysandus’ killer).
These bugs are just the tip of the iceberg. If you want a complete rundown, have a look at here or here or here.
If, after all that, you actually want to download and play this game, go to Bethesda’s website.
Posted 07/10/2009 by ShaolinCowboy.
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Donkey Kong Easter egg found. And it’s lame.
A committed gamer has found a hidden Easter egg in the Atari version of Donkey Kong... 26 years after the game’s release. The gamer, Don Hodges, says he had to scan all 25,000 lines of the game’s code. Eventually, he stumbled upon this exciting little gem.
What’s that? Can’t see it? Look closer. It’s the letters “LMD” located at the bottom of the screen. These are the initials of the game’s Atari programmer Landon Dyer.
Admittedly, the Easter egg is a pretty disappointing find. And it’s insanely difficult to trigger. But the egg has been hidden for almost three decades... making it the Tutankhamun of video gaming discoveries.
For his efforts, Don Hodges received a $75 reward from Digital Press.
If you want to find the incredible capital letters for yourself, this is how you do it (courtesy of Don Hodge’s blog):
1. Play a game and get a score of 33,000 through 33,900. This score must become the new high score.
2. Kill off all of your remaining lives. However, your last life must be killed off by falling too far - by walking or jumping off a girder that is too high to land safely. If the last life is killed any other way, the egg will not appear.
3. Set the game difficulty to 4 by pressing the Option button 3 times. The icon for this difficulty is a firefox.
4. Wait a few minutes, and the demo screen where Kong jumps across the screen will appear.
5. The title screen will then appear, and Landon Dyer's initials [LMD] will be at the bottom center of the screen.
So... piece of cake, right?
Digital Press is offering more rewards for other long lost Easter eggs... if you're bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon and happen to have a degree in computer programming.
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Metal Slug 7? More like Metal Slug version 1.7
Back in 1996, arcade gamers were dazzled by the release of the chaotic shooter Metal Slug. Featuring super-quick gameplay, a comical graphical style, and far too much blood for a platformer, Metal Slug generated legions of fans. Indeed, the original Metal Slug featured such an addictive co-operative mode, and was so stupidly difficult, that it sent many shooting fans bankrupt... even at the bargain basement price of only $1 per play.
Fast forward 12 years, and the Metal Slug series returns with its seventh instalment... this time on the Nintendo DS. This game won't hit Western shelves until November 18, but it's already generating a fair bit of hype among our gaming press, and even more fervour on the less reputable, but far more hilarious, internet message boards.
But just like an uncaring parent who tells their child that Santa Clause doesn't exist the day before Christmas, KillScreen Poetry is here to ruin the hype. Why? Because, unfortunately, Metal Slug 7.... well, sucks.
I recently got my grubby, amoral hands on the Japanese version of the game, and I have to say, it was disappointing.
To be more specific, it's a boring, unimaginative, and repetitive clone of the 1996 original. It features the same characters, same animations, same game play, same sound effects, same fonts, same nonsensical plot, same strange emphasis upon rescuing half-naked "POWs", and the same choice of weapons (admittedly cool weapons... but the same, nonetheless).
What does Metal Slug 7 have that is new? Well, supposedly there are seven "brand new" levels. But really, when everything else looks the same, changing the background texture of a map and slapping a "brand new" tag on it doesn’t really work.
The only things that make Metal Slug 7 different from the rest of the series are the features it doesn't include. For instance, there's no co-op mode. There's no donkey or elephant vehicles. And there's no zombies. Yes I repeat: no zombies.
Why SNK has decided to make everything else in the game the same, but leave out the best staples, is a difficult question to answer.
Of course, the identical nature of this game isn't just a problem for Metal Slug 7. Any follower of the series will be aware that, with slight exceptions, every Metal Slug borders on being the exact same experience. And that's certainly a problem.
But the far bigger problem for Metal Slug 7 is that, unlike its six predecessors, it's being released at the tail end of 2008... a full 12 years since the original title first graced arcades with its presence. And like other games released in 1996 (think Quake or Crash Bandicoot or Destruction Derby 2), the fun and chaos of the Metal Slug franchise is well and truly past its use-by-date.
Indeed, the thought of spending $50 on a DS game that is largely identical to six other instalments you can download on MAME, or buy in a handy anthology version for the PS2, is not only a silly marketing decision by SNK, it underestimates the intelligence of gamers.
What I would like to know is just how much money SNK has milked off the original R&D of Metal Slug over all these years. The game engine must be the most overused and rarely-updated engine in history. Even the EA Sports titles feature more significant developments in their yearly updates. Hell, even the Smackdown vs RAW series features slight discrepancies between their titles... like updated wrestler haircuts.
The rest of the world has moved on SNK. It's time you did too.
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