Episode 35: Did Anyone Actually Watch This Movie? [Super Star Wars]

Back to form this week with a game Tyler's been pushing for a while.  Apparently LucasArts made games for each of the movies in the nerd-beloved franchise, closely following the movies.  Like that one scene where Luke fights a Sarlac after wandering through a scorpion-infested desert with a blaster.



It's away! ...  Nevermind, it just downloaded on the surface.


(00:45) Bad impressions.  Wind Waker is still awesome.  Don't support this company by clicking this link.  Adventure modes are sweet, though.  Also, we talk about less crappy online pay models.

(09:30)  Zach's been playing Pokemon.  It's awesome.  Also, Gundam!

(15:00) Eldritch looks awesome.

(16:45) Favorite and least favorite licensed games.  Yu Yu Hakusho is a good show, but this is a bad game.  Arkham Asylum is awesome.  Play it.  Endless Duel! Gihren's Greed is apparently amazing, too.  Moonwalker...

(24:00) Super Star Wars should have been good.  Watch Luke run.  This game has some control issues.

(28:00) Arbitrary difficulty.  Sometimes it's fun, though.  Also, edification time!

(34:00) Only the most American characters in a franchise can do this.

Next time, it's Altered Beast!

Rise from your graves and talk at us!

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Bonus Episode 4: Castlevania

For our first Halloween, why not a vaguely horror themed game?  We only talk about it every episode, so it's about time we got around to recording one on it.  Alex rejoins us, and we talk about character alignments!  Whip it good!




Swallow our download to gains its abilities!

(00:30) We talk about sexy existential dilemmas.

(06:00) Jump arch matrimony!

(08:50) Angry lesbian stories.  Also, wall chicken.

(18:00) Sub-items, and why they're actually useful in this game.

(21:00) Mechanics!  Not that kind.

In summation, play Castlevania.  It will enrich your life.

The Ratings: October

Two bonus episodes really made the month of October feel short here at LTOVG. However, that won't stop me from rating games. In honer of spooktoberfest, this ratings column will be extra special. In addition to a normal rating, and extra SPOOKY rating will be next to it in orange, so that you know how appropriate each game is to play on Halloween. Check it out after the jump.

Super Smash Bros. 10/10 1
Despite being a great game, Super Smash Bros. isn't spooky at all!  None of the stages even have a spooky theme, how hard would it be to get some dead tress in there?  And none of the characters have any costumes that are even remotely spooky.  Wouldn't that be awesome?  Dark Link shows up in Brawl, but where my Zombie Pikachu?  Huh Nintendo?  Huh?
 
Mega Man X 9/10 3
Mega Man X has bot a forest level, and a factory level, a factory level that can be crashed into by a ship leaving to totally dark.  That's a little spooky, but there's no especially scary level, and none of the bosses are even remotely spooky.  I guess there's a Spider Robot in Sigma's fortress that might be spooky if you're afraid of spiders, but other then that, not spooky at all.  You should play it on Halloween anyway, because you should play it on every day.
 
Castlevainia Symphony of the Night 9/10 7
Alright Castlevainia, this should be spooky right?  Well... SotN is trying that's for sure, with all the tentacle monsters and the gothic castle, and even having you play as a vampire who can suck blood from his enemies to heal himself.  Unfortunately, like a lot of bad horror movies, the dialog drags it down and sometimes makes it hilarious rather than funny.  Still, C for effort SotN.
 
Super Metroid 9/10 6
Super Metroid starts out by making you feel isolated in this strange alien world.  As you go deeper and deeper, and more lava starts showing up, it starts to feel like a decent into hell.  However, you're a badass bounty hunter which detracts from the spookyness quite a bit, and the aliens invading the place makes you want to defend it, making you a part of the landscape rather than a visitor.  Still, very nice visuals.
 
Castlevania 9/10 10
Castlevainia is great guys.  As I've said before, the theme combines haunted house with Monster B-Movie, and it creates a really spooky atmosphere.  Sure, you're a bad ass Dracula-Hunter, but your whip has this delay and your jumps have this rigidness that make you plan everything out before you do it.  Make you think.  Make you scared.  Castlevainia is great.  And spooky.  Play it.
 
Mega Man 2 8/10 4
Mega Man 2 has both a spooky forest level, (that's not that spooky) and a factory level.  So what puts it ahead of Mega Man X on the spookometer?  Well one, the factory level is a lot more mechanical and spooky.  But two, the best weapon in the game is a buzz saw, so you spend most of the game chopping up robots with Buzz Saws.  Now that's spooky!
 
Mega Man 8/10 1
Nothing really spooky about the first Mega Man sadly.  Even Wiley's castle doesn't have a skull on it like in Mega Man 2.  Oh well.
 
The Legend of Zelda 8/10 4
For featuring a protagonist who's main trait is supposed to be courage, The Legend of Zelda doesn't give you many spooky adversaries to overcome.  Sure, you slowly go into dungeons and fight horrible monsters at the end, and it has all the spookyness that comes with going out on an adventure, but it never does anything especially frightening, at least not as far as I got into it.
 
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars 8/10 2
Mario isn't very spooky.  The Boos are a scary idea, but there's not even a haunted house in this game.  RPG combat is less spooky then actual platforming as well.  Geno is kind of creepy I guess, being a living puppet, but he's also basically an angel which negates that.
 
Gradius 7/10 6
In space no one can hear you scream.  That's pretty spooky.  Easter Island heads are also pretty spooky, and this game has a lot of them.  You die a lot, which deflates a lot of that spookyness, but Gradius is actually sort of up there on the spooky front.
 
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber 7/10 4
Ogre Battle has spooky demons and ogres and gorgons and all sorts of scary stuff!  That said, nothing they do is all that scary.  They're just presented as enemies to fight.  That's fine, but the way monsters act is sort of what creates the line between fantasy and horror, and while there's a lot of overlap, Ogre Battle 64 is pretty clearly in the fantasy camp.
 
Castlevainia II: Simon's Quest 7/10 11
That's right bitches.  Castlevainia II is even spookier than Castlevainia!  It's got legends about how terrible it is surrounding it, and it's about going to different mansions and getting something from each.  Trick or Treating is quite spooky, and it ends in Dracula!  What could be spookier than all that?
 
Doom 7/10 5
Doom is similar to Super Metroid and Ogre Battle 64 when it comes to spooky.  It uses all sorts of demons, and you literally descend into hell as you go.  However, you also get more and more powerful sci-fi guns as you go along, becoming more and more able to deal with the challenges you face.  The Demons aren't really scary, they're there to be overcome, which makes it a power metal fantasy rather than a horror game.  Still, at least there's some potential for spooky.
 
Metroid 7/10 4
Metroid has a similar feeling of loneliness and decent as Super Metroid.  It also feels more like you're the invader, and the various creatures attacking you are natives, which increases the spooky feel.  Unfortunately, the graphics aren't as good, and it feels less like a decent into hell and more like, well a video game than its sequel.
 
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels 6/10 5
Lost Levels!?  Those sounds spooky right!  And this game is also a big of a legend, being so hard it was only released in the mythic land of Japan.  It's still just Mario though.  Much harder than the other games, but not especially scary.
 
Super Mario Bros. 6/10 3
Itsa Mario.  Itsa got underground caves and creepy castles and dragon turtles youa put into lava.  Ok, maybe itsa little spookier than I thought thinking about it, but itsa not a really that spooky.
 
Super Mario Bros. 2 6/10 5
Mario Bros 2 is all actually a dream!  Spoilers.  That means none of the Spooky things within can actually hurt you (unlike other videogames which aren't a dream) which makes it less Spooky.  It also allows for a lot of creepy dream images, like those faces that chase you around... those faces.... Creepy.
 
Pokemon Snap 6/10 3
Pokemon have a lot of potential to be terrifying.  Seriously, read a couple of Pokedex entries.  Despite two cave levels, Pokemon Snap really squanders all the potential spookyness.  The Haunters that only show up when you develop photos are a really nice touch though.

Otherwise, Pokemon Snap is fairly impressive.  It's always surprising to me what a crapshoot N64 graphics can be.  Despite being fun, Super Smash Bros. kind of looks like crap.  Pokemon Snap on the other hand is absolutely beautiful, and as a game about taking pictures, that's obviously quite reliant on visuals, that's a very good thing.  The game play is fun, but like we said in the episode, there's not very much of it.  That said, it didn't really leave me wanting more either.  It's an ok game, but hard to recommend today, due to its price point and the fact that it now has fewer than 10% of the total Pokemon.
 
Animal Crossing 6/10 2
Man that cat at the beginning is creepy.  And that cat on the train WITH NO FACE.  Ughhhh.  That said, for the most part animal crossing is too cute to be creepy, which is the reason these things stand out.  Maybe I'll pop it in to see if the game does anything special on Halloween.

The first Game Cube game we grabbed for the podcast, and probably the only one we'll play for some time.  Animal Crossing is interesting.  As a guy who plays Kingdom of Loathing every day, I understand what can be fun about a game that "refreshes" and encourages you to play every day.  And I got into Animal Crossing.  For a little while.  The reward structure, simply put, wasn't pleasing to me.  It was rare that I felt I really accomplished something, even something small, and the long term goals just seemed too far off.  If you can find it for cheap, I do suggest giving it a try, but it's not something I'd suggest anyone I didn't know personally seek out.

Gunstar Heroes 5/10 1
Sadly, there's really nothing spooky about Gunstar Heroes, at least nothing that I can remember at all.
 
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link 5/10 3
Death Mountain sounds pretty spooky right?  And you spend a lot of time fighting Skeletons and Headless people in the game.  Spooky right?  Well, unfortunately, the game play is just sort of rigid and unfun, and doesn't really give you time to experience  any spookyness.

Super Dodge Ball 5/10 ☭
Super Dodge Ball is way to fun to really be spook at all, I mean it takes place in the 80s and... and is that Stalin?  Ghost Stalin?  Ghost Devil Stalin!????  Ahhhhhh!
 
Final Fantasy 5/10 2
Like a few of the other games on this list, the actual mechanics of Final Fantasy, and the fact that it's, wait for it, a fantasy game, offset any potential spookyness.  That and the ability to take between 1-4 characters who can heal you and instantly destroy the undead.

Strider 5/10 ☭ 2.0
Strider takes place in a cyborg future run by some sort of vaguely Russian communist empire that has both a moon base and a flying battleship.  It's scary if you're afraid of Communist empires, so if you've been transported here from the 80s, Happy Halloween.

Strider is sort of like Sonic, it's a very pretty platformer with a bit of a gimmick.  Unlike Sonic, the design doesn't undermine the gimmick.  Also unlike Sonic, they fail on a lot of basic feed back levels, and it's easy to get lost in a game.  It just feels very loose, a lot looser than it actually is.  If it was just a little more clear when you took damage and when you'd killed an enemy, this game would be great, but as is, it's mediocre.

Excitebike 4/10 1
Motorbikes aren't scary.  Racing isn't scary.  NES carts aren't scary.  Nothing to see here.
 
Kirby's Adventure 4/10 3
Like Animal Crossing, Kirby's Adventure isn't spooky until suddenly is.  I guess the sentient tree that serves as the first boss could be seen as kind of creepy, but the extra dimensional space terror that you suddenly have to fight at the end definitely is.
 
Doom 2 4/10 ctrl+v
I could just copy paste what I said about Doom here, but I'm lazy, so if you'd pretend I did, I'd really appreciate that.
 
Zombies Ate My Neighbors 4/10 6
Lots of games take horror elements and use them as fantasy monsters, lots of other media does too.  But one technique that other media has used for a long time that is much rare in video games is parody, and one of the easiest things to parody is horror and spookyness.  So many people go to monster movies to see the zippers that there's a genre of film that caters specifically to that, things like Evil Dead.  Zombie Ate My Neighbors is that.  Like Castlevainia it uses all sorts of classic elements, but it uses them for humor.  It's not scary and it's not a great game, but it does try something that I'd like to see more of in modern games.

Harvest Moon 4/10 1
I just realized none of the Harvest Moon games I've played have a Halloween equivalent.  That  is simply unacceptable.  If you have played a Harvest Moon game with a version of Halloween, tell me in the comments!

Sonic the Hedgehog 3/10 4
Eggman's theme song actually is sort of spooky.  It's a good theme too, way stronger than anything Bowser ever had.  Still, there's plenty of cool levels in Sonic, and none of them are Haunted Mansion themed, at least not in the first game.  More wasted Spookyness potential.
 
The Legend of the Mystical Ninja 3/10 2
I never really got Japanese horror.  I love The Ring, but other then that, it sort of falls flat on me.  Add in the goffyness that Mystical Ninja likes to pepper into Japanese culture, and filter it through the quite mediocre localization, and there's not much spooky to be found here.
 
F-Zero 3/10 1
Races aren't spooky.  The future isn't spooky.  Potential spooky characters like Blood Falcon hadn't been introduced to the series yet.  F-Zero fails on all spooky levels.
 
Act Raiser 3/10 2
Act Raiser is a game in which you play God.  Not only that, but you play God using his remove control statue to battle monsters, you don't even have to battle them yourself.  On the other hand, certain religions would find that to be heresy, so I suppose if you do that's sort of spooky?

Bases Loaded 3/10 1
Baseball isn't spooky, and despite making up teams, Bases Loaded doesn't even grave us with something like "The Killers" or "The Reapers" or even "The Ghouls."
 
Ogre Battle 2/10 4
Like Ogre Battle 64, Ogre Battle is more about Fantasy than spookyness.  The one witch you can get does seem to be experimenting horribly on the populace, and you take a pretty big reputation hit for forgiving her, so that's something I guess.  Not much though.
 
Comix Zone 2/10 3
Man remember the 90s?  With like, Mutant everything and sewer creatures and all that?  Comix Zone has a lot of that.   Much like the 90s, it's a lot sillier than it is Spooky, but I suppose they're at least sort of trying.
 
Double Dragon II The Revenge 2/10 2
And going even further back, to the 80s, we have some gang violence.  Gang violence is scary sure, but it's not s-p-o-o-k-y.
 
Double Dragon 2/10 2
Double Dragon continues to be worse than Double Dragon II in every way, but since you can't play it with a friend, I suppose that actually makes it a little spookier and things even out.
  
Ghosts and Goblins 2/10 -13
One of the hardest games of all time with all manner of Ghosts and.... Zombies and Ghouls and Goblins and Satans and The Devil standing in your way.  Why isn't Ghosts and Goblins especially spooky?  Well part of it is that it's running on NES hardware.  It looks like a cartoon, and while that can be scary, it has to work a lot harder.  You have to be invested in the characters, and here you're really not.  That, and you die way to frequently.  To make horror effective in a game, you have to make the player think he's about to die at all points in time, but never actually kill him.  That makes him remember he's in a game, it makes him frustrated, instead of spooooooooked.
 
Phantasy Star 1/1 1
Seriously, Phantasy Star isn't even worth making a joke about how spooky it isn't.

Bonus Episode 3: Kirby's Adventure? I think?

Another bonus episode so soon?  Yes!  Due to timing problems, we didn't get to record a regular episode (mostly Tyler's fault) and we did this instead!  Also, Tyler's lazy, so no show notes.  While we're blaming Tyler for things, how about trolling on the Internet.  That's one person's fault, I think.



Our hangover cure: take two downloads with a shot of videogames.

Episode 34: Future Ninjas Are Boring [Strider]

A lone ninja fighting through a dystopian neo-Russia against hordes of robotic minions and sweet airships sounds cool, right?  Right?



Walk this way to our download!

(01:00) Symphonic bliss. Terraria party! Geremy’s in Silver-3 in LoL, because we need more Fantasy Football comparisons.

(02:30) Possibly the best intro song ever. Meteos doesn't look as anime as I thought he would.

(04:30) Scribblenauts is now heroic.

(08:00) Everyone has an evil clone.

(10:45) Rune Factory 4 has a rating of 97/100 on IGN after 44 ratings right now.

(14:15) We really need that Genesis game checklist Geremy keeps mentioning.  Not a plug.  That conveniently ties in with our talk about feedback in games, though.

(19:00) Upgrades... this game has them, I guess.

(20:30) You'll hear a lot of the sword noise.  Also, the Genesis version looks so much better than the Master System.

(23:00)This game is a quarter sucker!  It also has awesome concepts, though.

(28:30) The sequels look awesome. We talk about horror games for a bit.  Relevant to that last link since Tyler always rants about it.

(32:00) Mutant League is awesome.

(33:15) We ran out of stuff to say about Strider, so we talk about the games/genres we would like to see more life injected into.



Next time on Last Time, it's Super Star Wars!  Grab it on the VC if you want to play along!

The Force is strong with us.  Find out just how strong at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Episode 33: Click click click Instead of Pew pew pew [Pokemon Snap]

It's our first rail shooter, and it's not even a shooter.  Join us on an adventure through a suspiciously multi-environed island as we take pictures of everyone's favorite collectible monsters.  Solve puzzles, see wonders, and pester some Pokemon!



Our download is almost as elusive as Mew!


(01:00)  Video Games Taco is a podcast about some stuff done by some ladies affiliated with some other podcast.

(03:00) Our recent gaming endeavors. Pokemon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire is remarkably relevant.  The Steam box is new, so we talk about it.  ShinTen is apparently a damn long game. 

(05:00) We (mostly Zach) ramble a bit about choices in games.

(12:00) XCOM is still awesome, as is Odin Sphere.

(13:30) Animal Crossing burnout happens quickly.

(17:00) Oh, snap! We discuss our first Pokexperiences.  The card game is super broken.

(21:00) We talk about how the game is scored.

(25:00) This game used to let you print out the pictures you took.  Apparently you can post them from the VC, too.

(26:30) Progression in this game happens by solving obvious, yet strangely satisfying, puzzles.  Most of them result in evolution.  The individual levels are pretty nicely designed and super replayable.  Pikachu rides things.

(29:30) Bulbapedia is like crack for Pokefans.

(34:00) Gluing Pokemon together is a thing.  There's one that's just a sword that becomes two swords.  Geremy likes the way Slowbro gets in the game.

(38:00) Just the right length, apparently.

(41:00) How to improve this game: make it Pixelmon.  Also, make it on the Wii U.

(44:00) There are some silly powered Pokemon.

(45:45) This is mentioned.  Tangentially related to that.

Next time on Last Time, Strider!

Slash up our inboxes at

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
 Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Bonus Episode 2: Animal Crossing

This week we have a bit of a change of form with what I like to call "The LTOVG Guest Host-apalooza!"  +Katie Smith and +Alex Tift are on the mics with the usual hosts for this episodes, and it's fairly raucous.  This is a bonus episode, so the quality of the audio is less than normal; Geremy did what he could to salvage it.



Shake shake... A download fell out of that tree!

(00:40) An introduction to Katie!  That other game she plays is this!  Also, she's making an edutainment game of some awesomeness: Adventure Girls.

(05:40) Zach leads off our recent games list.  Bolas!  Alex plays some games?  Odin Sphere!  Odette is creepy...

(13:00) Educational games!  A.D.A.M. is apparently a series.  Oregon Trail is in your Interwebz.  SimAnt is a pretty cool game.  Zoombinis and pizza.  Fantastic Contraption and its sequel allow you to create a ton of different machines to solve problems.

(25:00) ActRaiser was mentioned.  Just sayin'.

(26:30) Animal Crossing!  You may have questionable origins.  Kirin is god... thing.  It's mentioned in this show.

(35:00) How you make money in these games.

(39:30) Tarantulas.  Seriously?

(43:45) Fuzzy Pickles!

(49:30) Tyler's totally wrong.  Maybe Morrowind?

(51:30) Humans are gluttons and will play all the games if possible.

(54:30) Rover!


Next time on Last Time, Pokemon Snap!

Snap a shot of our elusive contact info! 
Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
 Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
You can also go to the show page at gplus.to/LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.