Nick Prosch online

5 retro games I should have played

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 | Games, Misc, Tech-savvy | 3 Comments

I recently started a list of games that I played for record keeping and nostalgia reasons. Doing so I came across a few games that people used to talk about a lot or that seemed to be important in some way at their time in gaming history.

I tried to pick the top 5 retro games I should have played (High Fidelity anybody?).

1985 Bard’s Tale, The (C64)
I love RPGs (like Eye of the Beholder, Ultima) and I guess The Bard’s Tale series would have let me dive into a great fantasy world that I just missed by a few months of age – at the time I didn’t own a Commodore 64.

1985 Super Mario Bros. (NES)
My fist (non-handheld) Nintendo was a Super Nintendo. I already played Super Mario Land with great enjoyment, and loooved Super Mario World. I missed out on the “original” Super Mario Bros. though (I consider this the original, not the single screen arcade Mario titles).

1986 Metroid (NES)
One of my all time favourite game is Turrican (respectively Turrican 2). Well, this reminds me of Turrican AND I loved the Metroid Prime games on the GameCube.

1985 Elite (C64)
In fact I don’t know much about this one, except that it is some kind of space trading simulation, right? Anyway, one of the first games that everybody talked about and I didn’t have a clue what it was all about, it just seemed to be an unmissable game at the time.

1985 Thexder (PC)
Years after I madly fell in love with Turrican I realised that there used to be a title that reminded my of Turrican. So I guess I would have liked Thexder.

Writing this list I did not realize that almost all games I kinda missed out on were released around 1985. I guess this is due to my increased interests in computers at the time without owning one yet. I got into computing with an Commodore Amiga 500 in 1986 and into “consoling” with a Super Nintendo aka Super Famicon in 1992 (apart from the original GameBoy in 1989).

BTW: This is NOT me, just a fun 80′s picture. I would have never put up a Duck Tales poster (the rest is pretty close )

Tags: 80's, gaming, old school, retro

Getting out of bed the right way

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 | Gadgets, Games, Misc | No Comments

I think I kinda found the perfect wake up sound – the Monkey Island Theme!

Apart from being a brilliant computer game’s tune it starts with a dingelingding that draws your attention (thus “wake up”) but gives you enough time to hit snooze or get up before the song really kicks in.

From a psychological point of view it is a also a good start into the day because it subconsciously reminds me of childhood memories that draw a faint smile on my face – even though I have to get up… try it yourself here.

Tags: monkey island, mp3, ost, retro

Review: Guitar Hero Metallica

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 | Games, Reviews | 3 Comments

Tonight, I played one of the greatest games ever.

Guitar Hero Metallica.

If you ask me about my favourite game of all frickin’ time it would be Turrican (Part 1 and 2 ) The second place is occupied by a dozen games, such as almost every Mario instalment, the Monkey Island series, Zelda, GTA 4 ++, Midnight Club L.A., Blockout, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima, Faery Tale Adventure, Parasite Eve, you name it.

When I came home from work tonight my wife had to leave for a babysitting session. So I took the chance to chuck in Guitar Hero Metallica for the first time ever. It’s been 6 hours since, I had a hell lot of fun and I am pretty pissed right now (5 bottles o’ brew and aching fingertips to my account).

Wow, I’ve been James Hetfield! I’ve been Kirk Hammett. I’ve been live on stage (my kittehs complained or cheered, I dunno)! You may think I am crazy, but if you are into Metal, 30+ o’ age and willing to pay a dazzling 20 bucks you are in! The game is very well done and after the disappointing Guitar Hero 4 and 5 (from a technical point of view) this release is finally something you can just jump into playing. It just works. Once I calibrated the lag (25ms audio and video) I was rocking my shiny metal ass off!

6 out of 5 stars! – if you are into the genre go get it right away and donate to the creators!

Tags: guitar hero, metallica, turrican

Review: inFamous – my first platinum trophy

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 | Games, Reviews | 5 Comments

I’ve done it. My first achieved platinum trophy. This trophy is only rewarded by completing every achievement the game provides.

Anybody playing on Playstation network or XBOX Live knows that this is something quite demanding.

I decided that this will be the end of my gaming career. Well, not entirely, as I cannot deny the pleasure of casual gaming, but recently I just wasted to much precious time playing games such as GTA 4, Midgnight Club LA, Resident Evil 4/5, Dead Space, you name it. So I decided to put an end to endless weekend sessions of grinding.

Gaming has been an important part of my life, going back in time as far as 1982 playing River Raid (the first videogame ever to be put on the “Index” – meaning banned in Germany! *lol*) and Sea Quest on the Atari 2600. I can’t deny that I wasted a lot of time in front of systems such as the Commodore Amiga, Nintendo GameBoy (the grey one!), Super Nintendo/Famicon, Playstation 1 2 3 and the PC. Thank god it was just a lot of time, never an addiction (although the platinum trophy hunt came pretty close!).

Playing inFamous never felt like playing a great game. I just played forever, one more mission, one more achievement, end credits. Let’s play it again in hard mode as the villain. Beat it again, almost threw my controller into my telly fighting Kessler in hard mode, decided to do the rest of the achievements. In the end I think inFamous is a great game, I just can’t be bothered any more. I decided to spend my future spare time with things more rewarding, family, guitar or maybe even working overtime . There is so much more to do than spending half the weekend in front of my PS3. Guess I had to have it all just to come back to the roots and enjoy the simple things again.

Let’s see whether this will work out – I already pre-ordered Red Dead Redemption. Again, the exception proofs the rule, right?

7.5 / 10 – a great game that didn’t really worked out for me – or did it?

Tags: addiction, ps3

Review: Resident Evil 5 (PS3)

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | Games, Misc, Reviews | No Comments

Oh, how I longed for the day Resident Evil 5 would hit the stores. I totally fell for RE4 – one of my favourite games of all time. Now part 5 is finally here, and I ran through it twice already, currently beating the “Veteran” levels. I read some reviews, but generally couldn’t agree with them, either because they were complaining about the wrong things or missing out some important details – just my 50 cent worth …

Okay, here we go, my review is intended for RE4 veterans. RE5 is basically RE4 in high res. Sounds good? Well, pimping graphics is not enough to deliver a good game. In fact a lot of kewl things from RE4 just got kicked out of the game, I guess this was done due to the massive coop team feature.

What’s new and good:

• hey, it’s Resident Evil – okay, this one doesn’t count…
• graphics/environment/the setting (RE4′s Spain setting was even more scary, but they did a great job bringing fear to Africa’s broad daylight!)
• the controls – a lot of people complained about the new RE5 controls (strafe while walking, turn while running), but I think they are very smart – you just have to get used to them (some people complain about not being able to move while shooting – this handicap is a stylistic device to increase fear just as the fact that you can hardly see your surroundings ’cause the cam is just behind you.)
• weapon / inventory system in real time (look, zombies approaching!) – more realistic and increases tension.
• weapons can be assigned to up/down/left/right keys for quick access, this is something I really missed in GTA4 (bloody weapon cycling!).
• teamplay – even though I rather play alone (the fear thing)
• weapons that are maxed out (again, pimping your weapons is something I missed in GTA4!) sometimes unlock new weapons

What’s new but not really RE:

• you can select any chapter to replay it
• all ammo/treasure is transferred, thus grinding is way to easy
• you can train a certain chapter until you know it by heart, making the game less horrible (in the sense of the “survival horror” genre)
• you can hardly die (your partner can rescue you while you are dying, you really have to try hard or be plain stupid to die in a normal fight) – this takes away a lot of the thrill a survival game should provide
• infinite ammo – come on … the infinite rocked launcher of RE4 was hilarious, but every weapon?!

What’s missing:

• the MERCHANT! (impossible, inexcusable!) “Welcome stranger, what are you buying?”
• you cannot buy treasure maps – so you have to look for the last piece of treasure for ages – could be a pro as well
• weapons that are maxed out don’t unlock their extra special feature (remember the 200 rounds shotgun? hmm…)
• you cannot combine treasures any more to get a more valuable object (I guess this was removed due to the chapter replay option, it would have been far to easy to obtain valuable treasure this way)
• last but not least: the atmosphere. RE4 scared me big time. The only game that really scared the wits out of me is “Fatal Frame” aka “Project Zero”. Compared to those games RE5 is quite boring. The first run is fun, but after that (and after you get comfy with the chapter replay) you just play the game without any adrenaline pumping though your veins. A big let down IMHO.

To sum it up: still a fun game to play, nice next gen fx, but the new coop teamplay lead to a lot of survival horror element cuts. What’s left is a decent horror shooter, nothing more, nothing less. I guess RE will never get to me again like part 4 did, even thought RE6 is said to be completely different to RE4/5. Let’s wait and see…

7/10 – good, different, but not fit to hold a candle to the ingenious predecessor

Tags: horror, resident evil, sequel, survival