What Did You Play? Uh in the time since the last one Edition (May-ish ’14)

by John "ANC" Barnes on

I guess I’m just gonna do these mid-month or whenever from now on. WHOOPS.

Yeah just talk about whatever you’ve been playing lately. I guess you can also talk about what games you’re looking forward to playing; I think we tried doing that for a bit a few years ago but, well, effort. I’ll go first, as is the way of our people.

Donkey Kong 64 – Hey, I even wrote a review! Short version: Banjo-Tooie but not as good.

Donkey Kong (Game Boy) – From arguably the worst to the best Donkey Kong game; I got whiplash. Unfortunately the I bought cart needs a new battery. I took the old one out but have been too lazy to get a new one. It is, as they say, the good shit, though.

World Heroes 2 Jet (Game Boy) – Another Game Boy game that makes decent use of the Super Game Boy. As Game Boy fighting games go, this is one of them! It’s decent. There’s no reason to play it seriously but it’s a solid little title, and I got the Japanese version for cheap. Plus the aforementioned Super Game Boy support is neat. Takara made a bunch of Game Boy versions of SNK and other fighting games, and they support two players using two SNES controllers on the SGB. Cool story bro.

NHL ’94, Saturday Night Slam Masters, Tiny Toon Adventures Wacky Sports Challenge, NBA Jam Tournament Edition (SNES) – Just checking out the multitap functionality in these. It works!

Mortal Kombat II (SNES) – A friend wanted to play this sometime in the near future. I never really got into Mortal Kombat although I always respected Midway’s approach to cramming secrets in their games. Found a cheap copy, played a bit, it’s stupid but fun. Amazing how much controversy there was over the violence back then, it all seems so silly and cartoonish now (both the violence and the uproar.)

Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (Wii) – Got in a few final matches before the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection’s plug got pulled. Saw my first hacking in a Brawl match with someone playing as Giga Bowser for the whole thing. That was fun. RIP Wii online. I now have two completely useless microphones.

Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Kart Double Dash!! – Still have to unlock everything again following the great memory card accident of 2010.

Micro Machines 64 Turbo (N64) – Picked this up in hopes of one day playing the insane 8 player multiplayer mode using 4 N64 controllers. In the meantime the single player is pretty fun! The ugly/goofy player avatars are oddly endearing. Good sound, charming game.

Mario Kart 64 – As long as I had the system out, thought I’d have a crack at this one. Never played much of it back in the day, never owned it until after I got a Wii. I’m losing my ass off in 100cc. I think I prefer Double Dash.

Link’s Crossbow Training – Worth more than the dollar or whatever I paid for it! Did the first set of events. It’s fun. I do miss true lightguns, though.

The King of Fighters 13, Skullgirls Encore (PS3) – Two gorgeous fighting games I’ve gotten via Playstation Plus that I’ll never put the proper time into. But damn they look nice. I played through Peacock’s story in Skullgirls and I don’t think anything can top 1930s cartoon-inspired orphan cyborg death machine so I’m probably done with that for now.

Pushmo (3DS) – Occupies that same space as Adventures of Lolo, Toki Tori and Chu Chu Rocket where you really admire the puzzle designers. Such a simple concept, yet polished and executed well and with a great deal of depth and a nice difficulty curve. I’m nearing the end of the included puzzles and looking forward to Crashmo next.

So there you have it, a survey of most of the things I spent any amount of time with in the last 45 days or so.

As to the future, I just mentioned Crashmo. Today I fired up Boom Blox for the first time, and I may stick with it, it’s instantly fun. And I may have a Wii U by the end of this year, thanks to all the stuff on display at E3, which wasn’t much but was all very solid and fun-looking.

So, how about YOU?