Sam's video game collection essentials

Professional wrestling! That’s a very significant field of entertainment that people make video games about which I have not at all mentioned in this entire blog yet. Of course, there were many wrestling video games before the Nintendo 64. There are certainly some older ones that gained a strong following such as “Pro Wrestling” for the NES and the “Fire Pro Wrestling” series which was stuck in Japan for a long time, but I never got into any of those when I was younger, and as an adult there are very few that strike me as standout titles that are worthy of a time investment in my current life.  If you’re a fan of classic video games and care at all about wrestling, you’re likely not surprised to see these games here. I’m sure most fans would agree that a new bar was set for the genre in the Nintendo 64 era with an excellent series of games released by Asmik Ace Entertainment and AKI Corporation. The first one they made on the console was WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, then WCW/nWo Reveng...

Nintendo, as everyone knows, is the creator and/or owner of a variety of iconic franchises such as Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. These series are all quite distinct from each other and generally don’t overlap aside from occasional cameos. But in 1999, for the first time, characters and worlds from these different franchises would be equally featured in the same game. What is perhaps amusing was that this game wasn’t originally planned to feature any of these franchises, as that idea was conceived after the basic premise of the gameplay was already established. Super Smash Bros. is a fighting game, but it is very different from something like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. There are platforming elements involved in Smash Bros., as your characters can move freely around a level (albeit on a 2D plane) that has various platforms that can be jumped on, in contrast with a regular fighting game where every battle takes place on a flat and limited space. All characters can execute a “double jump...

The original Star Fox was a very significant title on the Super Nintendo, since it had 3D graphics before that was the norm for home consoles. The console wasn’t built for 3D, so the graphics were primitive and the game had a “choppy” look as there weren’t many frames of animation. But thankfully the core gameplay behind it was really solid, so the game wasn’t just a short-term “style over substance” package that would quickly lose its appeal. You can read more about Star Fox 1 in my post about it here . With the Nintendo 64, Nintendo was able to greatly polish up the formula from the original Star Fox with much better graphics, sound and gameplay. Of course, Star Fox 64 would not be as novel as the original, which had the unique status of being a 3D game when the gaming world was almost all 2D. But 64 would make up for it and stand out by simply being fantastic. Star Fox 64 mostly keeps the gameplay fundamentals from the original, being a dogfighting (or I guess Foxfighting??) rail sh...

If one were to sum up these games in one sentence, it would definitely be, “What if Mario Kart were a snowboarding game?” Many Mario Kart clones exist, and while not all of them are bad, a lot of them suffer from the problem of not standing out enough and making you think, “I could just be playing Mario Kart instead”. Thankfully, being a snowboarding game helps Snowboard Kids differentiate itself a little more and make it worth a try. Like Mario Kart, you can choose from a variety of characters in this game who each have their own attributes. In this game you can also choose between snowboards you want to use which also have different attributes, so you can mix and match, something that Mario Kart didn’t let you do until several years later.  You will notice right away that the controls feel very different from vehicular racing games, which is a good thing. Since you’re going downhill, you don’t need to hold onto a “gas” button, though you can still influence your speed by hopping ...