I picked up Metroid Prime Trilogy before it became unavailable from recently going out of print. To think I’m behind on the series that I don’t even have the original release of Metroid Prime 3. Looking forward to (eventually) playing Metroid Prime with “New Play Control!” controls. I actually restarted Metroid Prime 2: Echoes a couple of months ago after only clocking about 6 hours in originally. Also I picked up “New Play Control!” Pikmin with a coupon that brought the current $15 price down to $5. I’m curious to see how the Wii remote speeds up the play control of the game.

I spent 5 awesome days starting at New Year’s at MAGFest 8, the Music and Gaming Festival, and a post is forthcoming. I will say it was satisfying and look forward to next year. Uwwwooaaarh!

Played about 30 minutes of Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and considering how much I liked Super Mario RPG and Mario, it’s surprising I’ve been missing this series so far. It’s like a spiritual successor, apparently some of the same staff from SMRPG work on Mario & Luigi, even the composer and has similar time sensitive attacks. The game is ridiculous with its humor with the dialogue and the sprite animations on the characters.

I put some time into the first chapter of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, and it kind of reminds me of Virtua On in the way you move in a 1 on 1 battle in a 3-D arena, except with Final Fantasy Heroes and Villians, and smoother movement, and magic. After eyeing the install option and putting up with the load times, I did a full install to speed up the game (much better). It’s interesting to see interaction between Amano designed characters like the Warrior of Light (FFI) and Nomura designed characters like Sephiroth (FFVII).

Still haven’t played Zelda: Spirit Tracks as I’m slowly plugging through the previous game, Phantom Hourglass. It’s actually a clever game with its puzzles, but as far as Zelda goes it seems bland. But I cannot skip ahead yet Spirit Tracks, which seems to be improved and a richer game. Link and Tetra actually establish a new Hyrule after The Wind Waker? Ha, I knew that wasn’t the end of “Hyrule” (betting A Link to the Past takes place later on in this “Hyrule”… )

I sat down and played through World 7 and 8 after going through each world, finally beating New Super Mario Bros. Wii and now I’m going back and collecting the star coins on each stage. My only nitpick with the game is that the transitions to start a stage and movement on the map screens could quicker. It just seems like it takes a few seconds to long to get to the “World #-#” loading screen compared to Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. Also I don’t need to be reminded on how to use items every time I go to a Toad’s house. It’s a great sequel to the DS version and shows Nintendo knows how to make a very good Super Mario Bros. game still, and I feel right at home running and jumping through the stages.

Also I got obtained 99 levels and discovered Mario won’t have his hat on with that many 1ups.

Super Mario Bros. Wii get! I’ve finished the first world of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and it’s awesome. It’s already better than the original New Super Mario Bros. for DS, just in the level design of the stages and the difficulty, it feels like Super Mario Bros. 3, maybe even the original Super Mario Bros. Though I consider myself a pro at Super Mario Bros., the game is keeping me on my toes with the platforming and hopping on enemies. I’ve only died once due to lava and a tricky turning gear in the second castle of world 1 and jumped in the wrong spot.

[Minor Spoilers] The game’s story is as simple as I would expect from a Super Mario Bros. game, compared to Super Mario Galaxy’s theatrics. The game opens with Mario and Luigi (and a blue and yellow Toad) at Princess Peach’s birthday party, when a giant cake is rolled in. Peach walks over to take a look when surprise- Bowser Jr. jumps out from the top, and then another surprise- Bowser’s original Koopa Kids from Super Bros. 3 jump out too, snatch Peach, and get away in a airship. Mario, Luigi, and the toads take off after Peach and the new game begins!

The control of the game feels very tight, even though Mario is a 3-D character it feels exactly like how you would expect a Super Mario Bros. game to play. You always feel in control of Mario, and if you’re good, you can show off some great jumping skills.

There are several elements taken from previous Mario games. Yoshi is back, and without his cute voice from Yoshi’s story, and instead with sfx from Super Mario World. He also has his floaty jump from Yoshi’s Island if you continue to hold down the 2 button. Red coins from Yoshi’s Island are back, appearing in the surrounding area and some in sticky places when you go through a red oval.

I’m surprised to find that being a Wii game it’s actually made for a widescreen aspect ratio, as it has black bars when playing 4:3 on my SD TV. It looks natural even though I can see this was done with multiplayer in mind, and you can far ahead. The stages are open and wide because of this, reminding me of Super Mario World, but there’s just as much going on, if not more.

During a water stage, there were schools of cheep-cheeps swimming by and taking up a good deal of the screen, and the whole game has enemies everywhere. I can certainly see that the game was made for longtime Super Mario fans, thanks in part to the super guide that appears for players having a hard time, and the media commenting that the DS version was too easy.

I’m only done with the first world, and New Mario Bros. Wii already feels like a great entry into the Super Mario Bros. series. I can’t wait to see the rest of the game, it must be amazing.

Difficulty balance in games is a touché thing to handle. Make the game too hard and it limits the amount of people that can play it, but make it too easy and everyone will complain that it isn’t hard enough. In my case, I kept playing Street Fighter IV on medium despite the fact that I was new to the game and that there were about 3 difficulty levels below that. I realized playing through the arcade mode on medium and getting constant game overs and sucking up all of my time constantly continuing wasn’t worth it. Having the computer beat me up wasn’t teaching me anything, so I’m better of starting the game at a lower difficulty until I can get a fill for the controls. Then I can work my way up the difficulty as I become more familiar with the game.

Unfortunately when developers put in lower difficulties in games, most people will not want to choose “easy”. An example of this is Contra 4, where it has easy, normal, and hard modes. According to the co-producer of Contra 4, most people who complained about the difficulty in the game didn’t actually play on easy, because it was called “easy”. The whole purpose of “easy” was to allow the player to practice playing the levels that were too difficult for them to start out with on normal, and that’s exactly what I was doing with Street Fighter IV. The several difficulty modes in Contra 4 let them make the game hard without watering it down for the masses. Now in my case I played Contra 4 on normal the whole time and loved every minute of it, but I think I’m pretty good at Contra. And the extras that become unlocked after beating Contra 4 are worth it.

This goes back the reason why I’m playing through Street Fighter IV’s arcade mode and getting frustrated, to beat the game with every character and unlock every character. Should fighting games have to make a player unlock characters? Tekken 6’s producer stated that unlocking characters was outdated and unfair for online players to not have access to all of the characters. Now I can understand that if you’re buying a fighting game day one and want to get together with your friends at that moment for multiplayer matches, you’re not going to want to sit there and play a single player game to unlock characters, but that’s only in the beginning.

The Super Smash Bros. series handles unlockable characters well by giving two methods, either by playing through the single player game, or by playing a certain amount of vs. matches so that the time spent playing multiplayer counts toward unlocking characters.

SoulCalibur IV has quite a few characters locked, but like Smash Bros. shouldn’t take much time to unlock.

By limiting the roster of characters at the beginning, new players and old are forced to play with other characters that they might not normally use, learning not only how to play with them but what to expect when playing against those characters. When I encounter a character online that I haven’t unlocked yet, it’s a surprise, and I want to play further to get to that character myself. As a single player experience, unlocking characters gives a reason for playing and beating the game. There’s also a sense of accomplishment because the game starts out with a basic amount of features, but as you play and progress, the game slowly opens up to its full version and you can appreciate what you’ve achieved.

I might not have become so familiar with C. Viper’s moves if I didn’t need to beat the game with her to unlock Cammy, and my save file shows that I’ve earned the character. I could do without the cheap final boss though.

I’ve finally jumped in and got an Xbox 360, making it the third non-Nintendo system I’ve owned, and bringing my collection one third closer to having all three of this generation’s consoles. Strangely enough, I got it because my soul was burning with a desire to play Street Fighter IV, despite not considering myself that big of a fighting game fan. I had played every version of Street Fighter II that hit the Super Nintendo, and own a few versions of the series for Playstation 2. I have been wanting to play Soul Calibur IV, and check out some of the Xbox 360 and Xbox library that I had missed like Ninja Gaiden and Panzar Dragoon Orta.

From the look of the console and the accessories, I can tell it’s basically a PC in a box and an American console. That power brick is huge! The DVD drive can be loud when a disc is inside, and the fan in the back is noticeably noisy, though I don’t know if it’s actually quieter than earlier models. I ended up with the black 120GB Elite model over the white 60GB Pro model because I figured for the difference of $50 and the high prices of hard drives for the system I might as well get the Elite. If I use it enough in 2-3 years I might need the space with game installs and downloadable games, though I think I could have done with the 60GB and preferred the white color.

Speaking of which, the game install feature is nice to have to eliminate the DVD drive noise, and shave off a few seconds loading time, though SFIV and SCIV are my only examples and already load fast off the disc. The new interface that came out last year is much better than the old blade system they had before. Whenever I tried a demo in a store I’d fumble through the menus trying to find the game demos. Xbox Live seems fully featured for premium you have to pay to play online. Its interesting in how its integrated into the system and your profile, and even showing a list of players you’ve played against incase you wanted to contact them later.

Street Fighter IV is so good, its everything that made Street Fighter II great and more. You have the entire colorful cast from before Super Street Fighter II returning, sorely missing from Street Fighter III, characters from Street Fighter Alpha like Sakura, and the legendary “Sheng Long”, Ryu and Ken’s long thought dead master. The 3-D graphics do an excellent job of bringing the characters to life in their many expressions while still keeping a style that resembles a the series art style that was done in 2-D for so long.

At first the new focus attack seems like a stand in for SFIII’s parries, but there’s a little more to it. By pressing Medium Punch and Medium Kick you can absorb an attack and release the buttons to unleash a attack that charges until it reaches its max. Or you can dash left or right to cancel out of the focus attack, opening up a chance to rebound and attack. Also any move absorbed by the focus attack will add life to your health bar over a short time.

The online is great too, with very minimal lag, and the 1p arcade mode has a feature to allow online players to jump into your game to challenge you at any time, just like in the arcades. The online community must be thriving because I couldn’t get past the first stage loading screen before someone else would join in.

Soul Calibur IV is quite a step up from III on Playstation 2, not just because of the graphics, but the load times are short. During the single player game after defeating an opponent and putting my controller done, I was surprised to look up and find another opponent had jumped in. The match was actually against three characters, all appearing quickly one after another, and no loading screens! The amount of custom character customization is amazing too, not just in the custom characters, but in customizing the main cast as well with different clothing and accessories. I like how they ditched the special character classes from SC III, in favor of just using the character styles they already have, there’s already enough different styles to learn. The online mode is about the same as Street Fighter IV, except there isn’t a way to keep a flow of matches going without choosing a match in the menu each time. Lag can be a problem for me if there is less than 4 bars on the other player, otherwise its good.

Of course there was no way I was going to use a Xbox 360 controller for these games, so I got the Madcatz Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition stick, along with a FightPad just in case. I own a Hori Real Arcade Pro for PS2 so I’m familiar with the Japanese style, but I’m having trouble doing double quarter circle forwards on the 1P side. I bought a Seimitsu stick and might try switching it out to see if the tighter stick is more to my liking.

I won’t be picking much up for the Xbox 360 for right now, but will get a few downloadable games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) and Pac-Man Championship Edition, which were awesome to play the included demos of, playing the TMNT arcade game alone made it worth it.

GameX was contained in two rooms, on the way in there was a free play area, and the rest of the expo was contained in a larger show floor. The free play room had a large portion dedicated to people who had brought their own PCs, while there were a few retro arcade games lined up, and about ten console setups. One of the console stations had a Turbo Duo with Dracula X: Rondo of Blood set up but sadly I did not get the chance to play the original. Walking into the show floor kind of gave me a hint of what E3 must be like. EA was there showing off Dante’s Inferno (think God of War), and Sega was there with Bayonetta, but I didn’t get the chance to play.

Independent film group X-Strike Studios had a booth, and apparently they’re trying to get their Off Campus series going again. MAGFest was present in promoting their own con as well as presenting the several video game bands set to play over the weekend.

There was a large tournament station with Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur IV, etc holding tournaments, at least one dealer selling new video games and another selling older, used games and hardware, with quite a few cartridges fully boxed. Among other things there, there were Jedi fencing lessons, a robotics-something area with remote controlled robots throwing balls, and even Dave and Busters were there with the new “retro” arcade cabinets for Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong/DK Jr./Mario Bros. At the center stage a local game center held a finals match for a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament worth $25,000 for the winner.

Before I talk about the bands, I should mention that the sound conditions were not the best. Whether it was a combination of the large warehouse like room giving bad acoustics, or just the speakers had too much bass and lacked clarity, the sound coming out of the speakers was way too booming and I had a hard time listening after a while to some of the rock heavy performances. By standing to the side of the stage, I could hear the drums clearly. The Megas played first and it was the first time I had seen them, and rocked the room with their take on Mega Man music with lyrics. Rare Candy squeezed in a few songs, and after seeing them at Towson University where they sounded awesome, it confirmed what I thought about the sound quality here.

Luckily as The OneUps diversify in the genres they play with jazz and rock, their sound came through better. A PS3 setup to the projector displayed video of the games they covered and helped link their performance together with the games. Seeing the likes of Chrono Trigger, Super Mario Kart, and Super Metroid in the background with the OneUps playing gave me goosebumps. Short on time, they ended their set with a rock rendition of Punch-Out!!.

So I got to see the OneUps, and far more of the roads of Pennsylvania and Delaware than I intended. I don’t know that I would come back and stay at a hotel for the weekend for this event unless I was closer, as it was an expo rather than a convention where it would be more about a community of people, than more of an industry event. It was nice to go to a convention center that wasn’t in a crowded city and had its on parking. I would have liked to have been there earlier though, as there were many video games to play like I said with the console setups, the tournament area even had tournament edition arcade sticks setup for Street Fighter IV, and the MAGFest booth was running the classic Super Smash Bros. Melee on a projector. So anyways GameX seems like it’s off to a decent start from what I saw, and more video game events can’t hurt.

So when a friend of mine called me up to get me to come to a small crab restaurant which had some old arcade games, I didn’t have high expectations. As I pulled into Crabtowne USA’s parking lot, I could see a few arcade cabinets of Ms. Pac-Man, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Asteroids in the window of the restaurant. “Oh, that must be all it was.”

No. No it was not.

Somewhat disappointed, but not surprised, I walked into the restaurant and saw another room at the other end where I could see cabinets with glowing monitors. The room next to the restaurant was packed with what had to be about 40 classic arcade cabinets plus a number of pinball machines, all lined up. I had never seen so many classic games in one place before. The games ranged from the 80s to early 90s, and spanned many genres. It was like being at Chuck E. Cheese’s! Every time I turned around, there was something new I hadn’t noticed before.

The majority of the games were set to $0.25, with the exceptions of a few like Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, and Daytona USA that were $0.50 and $1 respectively. The arcade was well maintained too, with all but maybe two of the machines not working, and a box to request repairs or submit problems to the technician company that maintained it. Some of the buttons might feel a little sticky from use, but overall the cabinets and games were in good condition.

A few of the games they had: Asteroids, Galaga, After Burner 2, The Simpsons, Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Mappy, Tetris, Popeye, Final Fight, Mortal Kombat 4, Daytona USA (1P), Punch-Out!!, Kung Fu Masters, Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Arm Wrestling, Terminator 2, Street Fighter II CE, Spyhunter, Virtua Fighter, Hang-On.

I always had a hard time with arcade Donkey Kong, I don’t usually get far in the arcade order that adds a stage each round, and unfortunately the Mario Bros. cabinet was off.

I played Punch-Out!! and couldn’t get past Glass Joe, as I couldn’t get the slow timing down. I noticed the music was basically the same as the NES game, even the sound effects. I tried its cousin, Arm Wrestling, also set up on a two monitor cabinet like Punch-Out!!. I had to arm wrestle a “Texas Mac” by moving the joystick back and forth and pressing a button when a timed special move message popped up, but ending up losing.

Popeye was the inspiration for Donkey Kong that Nintendo wanted to make, but didn’t get the rightst to until later. It’s kinda set up like Donkey kong with the ladders and multi tiered platforms, but runs much faster. Pluto chases Popeye while Olive Oil sends hearts down from above for Popeye to collect, all the while dodging objects thrown by an old woman who appears at the sides, and eating spinach like a power pellet to fight Pluto. There was so much happening I got caught between Pluto and the flying objects and died.

Out of all of the games, there was one game that got most of my attention. As I walked down the last aisle that ended with Golden Axe, I saw this blue Nintendo cabinet capping it off. Was it a Play Choice 10, the machine with 10 NES games? Wait, no, “Vs. Unisystem Nintendo”?

It was VS. Super Mario Bros.!!

I am a huge Super Mario Bros. fan, and can race through the original game. This arcade version of Super Mario Bros. was made after the NES version, and features subtle changes to make it harder. I was completely surprised when I attempted to take the warps straight to World 8, and took the vine to the warp zone in 4-2, only instead of coming to a warp zone of pipes leading to world 6, 7, and 8, there was only one pipe leading to world 6!

I had known some of the levels were switched from the NES version, but didn’t notice in my play through since I hadn’t played the original lately. I did notice there were fewer power-ups certain places, and a few pits here and there where there were none. The 1up in 1-2 was missing from the ceilling spot, and after I spent some time collecting coins to gain 1ups, I noticed I hadn’t received any after what must have been 100 coins (the top of the monitor was squished so I couldn’t see the score bar), and realized of course its not giving me 1ups, you get 1ups from putting quarters in the machine.

Looking up VS. Super Mario Bros., now I see it was sort of a Super Mario Bros. 1.5 that contained levels that would later appear in the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels). It’s no wonder I had trouble in World 6, a few stages were from SMB2. When you get a game over, there is a screen to enter your name for the top 10 high scores, and features a remix of the Super Mario Bros. music exclusive to this version, that I had never heard before. Here’s hoping Nintendo opens their library of arcade games and puts up VS. Super Mario Bros. as a Virtual Console Arcade title on Wii.

If you’re a fan of retro arcade games in Maryland, be sure to check out Crabtowne USA in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The good days of arcades may have long since passed, but at least there are still a few places out there left, for now.