Sam's video game collection essentials

Game Boy first launched in 1989, and was a smashing success, dominating the handheld market for years. And it was rather remarkable that it did so despite not even being a piece of cutting-edge technology when it first launched, as there was another handheld console which boasted graphics and color and a backlit screen that hit the market the very same year. And as the years went by, Game Boy was even less impressive technologically and yet still remained number one in the handheld market all the way into the late ‘90s.  But at some point there would have to be a successor to the Game Boy featuring better technology. Sure, there were hardware revisions like the Game Boy Pocket which was smaller and used less batteries, but I’m talking a whole new Game Boy. And that wound up being today’s subject, the Game Boy Color, hitting store shelves in the fall of 1998. And it is perhaps a surprise that Game Boy Color doesn’t feel like a huge step up from the Game Boys that preceded it. The bi...

 I was intending to feature another Nintendo 64-related thing here for today, but unfortunately I've run into technical issues with it and I've decided not to post about it until I (hopefully) get it back working reliably again. So for now I guess I'll move on to what was next on the list, and this thing will have to interrupt at some point in the future...fingers crossed.

Yoshi’s Island on the SNES was an instant classic. The game served as a prequel to the Mario series, as the Yoshis transported baby Mario while attempting to rescue baby Luigi and bring the kids back to their parents. For the next Yoshi game, however, Nintendo decided it was time for the Yoshis to have a little more independence from Mario, and the next game would not feature an appearance by the plumber in any form.  Yoshi’s Story takes some gameplay basics from Yoshi’s Island, such as the midair hover. You can also eat enemies and turn them into eggs which can be thrown in much the same way. There are differences in the egg-throwing system; now you can use the analog stick to freely aim the cursor, and the throwing Yoshi stands in place while aiming, and eggs won’t ricochet when hitting a wall. But Yoshi’s Story is different from Island in a lot of ways. Unlike most platformers, you don’t clear a level by reaching “the end”, as Yoshi Story levels loop and don’t have a conventiona...

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 ...