Garou: Mark of the Wolves is one of SNK’s finest moments. Street Fighter III: Third Strike is one of the greatest fighting games ever made. Both were under-appreciated classics upon their initial releases, but found dedicated fan bases thanks to excellent ports. But which is the best 2D fighting game? Third Strike fan Avion Foster-Jarvis and Garou lover Jeffrey L. Wilson debate the matter in an appropriate three round bout. But we want YOU to pick the winner. Leave a comment below. But for now–lets rumble!
A while ago, I detailed why I believe that the music game genre is R.I.P., but the sentiment existed long before I set idea to keyboard. As a former Rock Band owner, I can say with earnestness that the game, while technically quality in terms of peripherals, song selection, controls, and timing, is exceedingly ho-hum. No matter how hard you rock out to “Cochise”, all that you’re doing is waiting for a colored icon to scroll down the screen so you can press a colored fret (or hit a colored drum) in time with it. I often found myself growing restless in spite of the killer tunes. It wasn’t until very recently when conversing with friends about the state of the modern arcade that I realized that I had played a type of rhythm game before, but in a far more enjoyable package: laser disc games.
I consider myself somewhat of a film buff. As such, it pains me more than a little to admit that my first Jon Woo experience wasn’t The Killer or Hard Boiled, but Face Off, the Cage/Travolta vehicle. I’ve since gone back and delved into Woo’s signature brand of stylish violence–long shots, slow motion sequences, fluttering birds–but Face Off remains firmly planted in mind as my introduction to poetic gunplay. Shank 2 is my new Face Off.
The Search for Tobin Frost is the official movie tie-in to Safe House, the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds intelligence thriller written by directed by Daniel Espinoza. The goal is to track down rogue CIA agent Tobin Frost, who has apparently betrayed his country and spilled secrets to various organizations and nations that want to do not-so-nice things to America.
We live in a politically correct society where we’re all created equal, inclusiveness is the new cool, and we all bleed the same red blood–but it wasn’t always that way. Turning back the hands of time in both the real and gaming worlds reveal universes filled with ideas that aren’t exactly the most P.C. and sometimes outright offensive. From misogyny to outright racist imagery, video games have walked the dark side when portraying certain groups. Here are a few of the more memorable politically incorrect moments in 2D games.
The King of Fighters ’96 is stuck in the past with its old look and laggy online capabilities. SNK has always taken care of its fans and of its franchises but thankfully this is a re-release instead of the latest installment. If you aren’t a diehard KOF fan then this may be one to stay away from.
Overall, Metal Slug 2 is a decent shooting game that can be an enjoyable history lesson. However nostalgia alone isn’t enough to make me erase its flaws. The brutal difficulty is only magnified by the horrible slow down, and makes this a tough purchase to recommend. At $9.00 it’s truly a hard pill to swallow, but if you’re a purist I doubt any of this matters.
Jeffrey L. Wilson is working on the King of Fighters XIII review right now, but until he delivers that, taste this: An unwrapping of the 4-disc King of Soundtracks.
The levels are so good, so imaginative at times — especially later modern levels like City Escape and Crisis City — I have to wonder why SEGA doesn’t do entire games like this. They obviously still got it in them! And the controls, a point of contention in Sonic 4, are spot-on this time. There are no gravity issues, no weird jumping caveats, or problems with control response or anything. This is the Sonic we remember from the Genesis days rendered in glorious, wide high-definition.
There are lots of quests, side-quests and knick-knacks to collect like photos and music, and various other things throughout the world to find. None of that matters though if there isn’t a compelling central game to anchor it all. There isn’t one here. Button-mashing the same ability over again and trudging through page after page of repetitive dialogue isn’t how I like to spend my time gaming on the Nintendo DS or any other platform, and I can’t imagine anyone else would either despite the beautiful and nostalgic artstyle Solatorobo uses. In that regard, the game’s aesthetic is like a Siren call. Get lured in by the pretty surface, get disappointed by the shallow insides. If there’s any audience for Solatorobo it’s the very young, very inexperienced or very forgiving. But even then, for all the playing there is to do in Solatorobo it’s more akin to a Let’s Play video than a substantial video game.
