Gaming opinions, reviews, news, and impressions. Plus thoughts on other cool stuff.
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Retro Gaming
I'll admit it: I'm a fan of the 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Most people pan the film for Keanu Reeves' admittedly wooden acting (fair), but I love Gary Oldman's portrayal of the iconic vampire and the generally spooky feel of the film. Plus, it really does capture the Bram Stoker novel better than any other adaptation. So, when I saw a copy of the Super Nintendo (SNES) game at my local used game shop, it was inevitably going home with me.
Keep reading to find out if it stands the test of time.
E3's a ton of fun, but it's all all about what's new and upcoming. Let's take a break and reminisce on some retro gaming goodness. After recently locating my old SNES cartridge of NBA Jam, it was pretty obvious that I'd need to try it out. I've never been a huge sports fan, but I have very fond memories of this game's outrageous take on basketball action. Boom shakalaka!
Long ago, before the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) began in 1995, there was "Summer CES" (Consumer Electronics Show). If you're not familiar with either of these events, picture huge conference halls filled with giant booths for upcoming games and games hardware, lots of video screens, people dressed up in the costumes of game characters, and hordes of people lining up to get their hands on the future of gaming. With E3 2014 starting tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to reflect on the past of gaming's biggest week.
I've got to confess that when I started this retrospective series, I thought, "this will be a great opportunity to go back and play all of the Mario Kart games to really get ready for Mario Kart 8." What I've really been playing all month is a whole lot of Mario Kart 7 on 3DS. Where the DS iteration laid the groundwork for getting a console-quality kart racer on the go, MK7 takes it up several notches and delivers a beautiful—and very portable—racing experience.
Just in time for the holiday season of 2005, Nintendo released Mario Kart DS for the Nintendo DS handheld console. As the second portable iteration in the series, it introduced a surprising number of advancements packed into a tiny cartridge: online play, additional characters to unlock, newly-remastered retro courses, and the new mission mode. It was a major step up from the GBA's Mario Kart Super Circuit visually, as well, featuring fully 3D levels and characters. Read on to find out why this game rocked.
With the launch of the GameCube in September 2001, Nintendo finally broke away from the once-mighty cartridge and caught up to the rest of world with a disc-based console. Of course, the discs were half the normal size and the system lacked DVD playback, a major selling point of its competitors, but the GameCube was certainly not lacking in the karting department. Mario Kart Double Dash!! released in November of 2003 and brought the Mario Kart into the new generation.
Mario Kart Super Circuit gave Nintendo fans their first taste of on-the-go karting when it released on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) in the summer of 2001. That tiny cartridge was a free pass to race anywhere, anytime, and it was a big deal. Read on for my retrospective on this diminutive game that made a big splash!
Mario Kart 64 ushered Nintendo's flagship racer into the third dimension on the Nintendo 64, a console that allowed four players to go head-to-head-to-head-to-head. It represents the biggest advancement between any two Mario Kart games and is a classic example of why the Nintendo 64 was the first really great party console.
In my first Mario Kart May post, I revisit Super Mario Kart on SNES, the breakout game that gave birth to the Kart Racing genre. I explore its use of Mode 7 graphics, items, characters, and multiplayer modes and catalog a few of the ways in which it changed the racing genre forever. A seminal game on the SNES and in Nintendo's history, it shaped the 16-bit generation in remarkable ways. Read the full post for the whole story!
Later this month on May 30, Mario Kart 8 releases on Wii U. This is a major deal, folks. For the rest of May, leading up to the launch of Mario Kart 8, I plan on writing retrospectives on each of the Nintendo home and portable console releases of Mario Kart. Bookmark this post for links to each of the articles as they release throughout the month!
