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Collection essentials #579: Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO (Xbox)

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Retro gamers may be surprised to find that this is the first time in the history of this blog that I’ll have talked about SNK. Before talking about this game, I’d better briefly give some background about them. SNK was one of the notable companies of the arcade era, coming to prominence in the 1980s, and making both arcade and console games. They are probably best known for their innovative “Neo Geo” hardware. They created and sold Neo Geo arcade cabinets which were unusual because they weren’t dedicated to one singular game. The cabinets were compatible with games produced on a cartridge, and each one had a few slots to insert multiple games at once, allowing players to switch between games. This proved convenient and economical for arcade operators, because they could have more games playable in their arcades with fewer cabinets taking up space, plus they could buy and swap in new cartridges without having to move any big heavy cabinets. It was a pretty neat idea. SNK also produced a...
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Collection essentials #577 & #578: Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 1 (Xbox) & Vol. 2 (PS2)

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If you’ve read a lot of my earlier blog posts, you’ll remember that Capcom was a name that came up a LOT. They were one of the greatest and most prolific developers for a couple decades starting in the 1980s. I think of them, Konami, Nintendo and Sega as the “big four” developers of that era who were incredibly prolific and made great games for a variety of different genres. Capcom really made a name for themselves making arcade games first and foremost. Of course, they made a habit of porting their biggest arcade titles to then-current home consoles. One problem, though, was that home consoles almost always lagged behind the power of arcade cabinets until the end of the ‘90s. Therefore, home versions of arcade games were almost always compromised at least a little bit. As home consoles caught up by the turn of the millennium, more and more companies started getting into the habit of releasing these compilations of their arcade games which were more direct conversions and close to perf...
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Collection essentials #576: WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!

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Wario’s creative new series started with “Mega Microgame$!” on the Game Boy Advance. That game had been single-player only, but Nintendo saw multiplayer potential in the gameplay formula. And so, later on in the same year, Nintendo released this…um…I’m not sure what to call it, because it’s not a sequel, not exactly a port, so I guess you could call it a spinoff maybe? Anyways, Mega Party Game$ borrows all the “microgames” found in the GBA original. It has fewer single-player features than that game and has basically nothing new to offer in that regard, something that’s perhaps more forgivable when you consider that this was a budget title that retailed for less than normal video games of its day. The main focus of this game is local multiplayer, offering a variety of fun and/or wacky modes for groups of friends to play. For more info on the basics of WarioWare, you can refer to my post about the GBA original . Most of the multiplayer modes in Party Game$ are designed for four players ...
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Collection essentials #574 & #575: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (GC & Xbox)

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For the third year in a row we’d get a new Tony Hawk game, and this is where most fans agree the series peaked. Tony Hawk 2 was a marked improvement over the first game and got practically universal acclaim from critics…and yet just a year later 3 came along and somehow managed to be EVEN BETTER.  If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably know that a lot of good video game sequels often deliver the same sort of thing as the previous game, but with more content and more polish. That’s certainly the case here. THPS3 certainly benefited from being developed for more powerful hardware, first releasing on the PlayStation 2. You can immediately see the improvement in the graphics and presentation. This game’s got more tricks, more skaters, better levels, and a better level creator as well. There’s one major gameplay addition in THPS3 that really puts it over the top. The second game had introduced “manuals,” performing something akin to a wheelie, and these allowed you t...
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Collection essentials #573: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x (Xbox)

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The first Tony Hawk game came out in 1999. It wasn’t the first skateboarding game, but it was the first one to really “nail it” and proved what a surprisingly great fit skateboarding could be for the video game world, with risk/reward gameplay that proved thrilling even for people who had never given skateboarding a second thought. You can read more about that game in my previous post about it . With the runaway success of the first game, of course a sequel would be made. And it came quickly, as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 launched almost exactly a year after the first game, in 2000, first on PlayStation, then Windows, then Dreamcast, then Nintendo 64 the following year. You may notice that none of those versions made my essentials list. That’s because this here is the definite version from back in the day. And it’s a rather odd release, too. The third Tony Hawk game came out in as many years in 2001, first on the PlayStation 2, then coming to other platforms a short time later. But inste...
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Collection essentials #572: Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC)

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                                                                      !!!! BIG POST TIME !!!! The first Super Smash Bros. game launched for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. It was made on a low budget and didn’t have a whole lot of content. However, the game was a big success anyway, as the frantic and fun four-player action and the appeal of different Nintendo universes crossing over proved to be huge selling points. You can read more about the first game in my previous blog post about it . With the brand new formula proven as a success, the series creator, Masahiro Sakurai, was tasked with creating a follow-up to be one of the big early titles on Nintendo’s next console, the GameCube. This next game was to be far more fleshed out and refined with a bigger budget. Sakurai famously worked...
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Collection essentials #570 & #571: Super Monkey Ball & Super Monkey Ball 2 (GC)

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Starting life as an arcade cabinet in the spring of 2001 and then as a launch title for the GameCube later that year, I’m pretty sure Super Monkey Ball was the first real significant Sega franchise after their Dreamcast console was discontinued, and thus the first to never actually appear on any Sega system.  I’m not gonna have a ton to say about Monkey Ball, because the gameplay is rather simple and straightforward. The concept of the game is that you’re trying to get your monkey in a ball to the end of each stage. If you look at a screen shot or footage of this game, you’d probably assume that you’re playing as the monkey, but you actually don’t. What you actually do is use the analog stick to tilt the level itself in four different directions in order to roll the balled monkey to wherever you want it to go. Think of it like one of those toy marble mazes where you tilt the surface in different directions to try to get the marble to the finish line.  Monkey Ball levels are ty...
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