Rejoice! Gay-den is here.
With fond memories of the arcade original, extremely robust reviews and the promise of a herculean challenge, I got me a pristine XBox and ordered Ninja Gaiden from Amazon.
Alas my slicin’ & dicin’ was cruelly postponed as our dullard postie gave the goods instead to my deaf, blind, acutely paranoid and unidextrous neighbour. After getting up at dawn and leaning on her door buzzer for a good 10 minutes however I finally got her spastic attention and the precious shuriken-laden parcel.
And I have the rest of the week off to pummel it! Joy.
25-May-04 at 5:47 pm | Permalink
Is there any greater feeling than getting a computer game in the post? I have fond memories of getting Final Fantasy 6 for the SNES imported from the USA when I were a lad. And Earthbound, which was the ultimate cross between Charlie Brown, the X Files, and Final Fantasy, and came with a scratch and sniff manual. Eeeh, that was some good games, aye sir.
25-May-04 at 6:35 pm | Permalink
Jesus bastard! It’s just occurred to me what game Ninja Gaiden is. It’s only fucking Shadow Warriors! Many a moneybelt thrown into it’s gaping maw doon the arcades at Berwick Upon Tweed. Then there was C64 joy. That and Midnight Resistance were very good to me, yes they were.
25-May-04 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
> Earthbound
I believe Rosy is the other local Earthbound expert, R?
I remember the genuine coruscating joy unleashed by receiving Wasteland on C64 (4 x 5.25″ disks, retro fans).
Today’s excitement is compounded by the Amazon box also containing Alan Moore’s complete Top Ten series and a whole stack of Richard Dawkins. Fucking yes.
25-May-04 at 8:52 pm | Permalink
Ooh, ooh – (do I really talk about Earthbound that much? Quite rightly so) I spend way too much time on Starmen.net. I even spent ages with a little add-on that let me make the character sprites look like me and my chums. Then I spent ages with a little ‘ard-on, I can tell you. I have such a boner for that game. Anyway… firstly, http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/ninjagai.htm and secondly, the only good thing about my seanbaby site is the title page, so, Bell, is there any way in hell of transferring it to the .com you so sweetly .commed in my face?? I don’t know ’cause I’m a girl. Never let the Bell end, I say.
27-May-04 at 4:49 pm | Permalink
I tried to start a new game of Earthbound on my SNES today, but after an hour of playing, it went all wrong and erased all my saved games. Damn you, old cartridge! I love Earthbound. I want to join a cult dedicated to the colour blue, and trap zombies in giant fly paper and have my mind transferred into a robot body in the future. Ah well. Back to recording my ‘album’ of camp classics, then…
29-May-04 at 1:06 am | Permalink
Just got Hyper Streetfighter Anniversary Edition. As much as I love its balls off, progress is a good thing, and SF3:Third Strike and Capcom vs. SNK 2 and the like shit all over it. Blasphemous talk, but it’s true. I’d much rather have awesome bondage trouser schoolkid Iori beating the crap out of Cuban army fascist Rolento from Final Fight with way-cool super moves, complex combo systems, neat tactical manouvers and edited colours, than Ryu vs. Ken shuffling around with 8 frames of animation and comparitively slow gameplay. Still, Original SF2: Best Music Everrrrr.
I have no idea what I’m talking about anymore. Shinkuu-hadooouuuken!
02-Jun-04 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
> seanbaby site title page
has already been sucked off (mmm) with the aid of wget. Will need some time to sort out javascripty bits and then we can whack it on as a front page.
> SF
I love Rolento. He was a crack-smoking grenade-spewing flea in Final Fight. He has a camp beret and a Wand of Sodomy ™.
Never played Cap vs SNK2, though I note it’s out fer XBox… wishlist here we come…
02-Jun-04 at 3:00 pm | Permalink
XBox version is full screen and runs at the right speed (Unlike poor euro conversion for the PS2), and would be the best game in the world (EVER, predictably) if I had a couple of decent joypads for it. As it stands, PS2 version is king, despite it’s flaws. If you have no problem with XBox joypads, buy the game. It’s probably only a tenner or something. I just wish Shermie and Leona from King of Fighters were in it. Oh well. It does have the woman from Final Fight 2, bizarelly.
02-Jun-04 at 3:40 pm | Permalink
> joypads
I don’t think they call them joypads any more do they? Shame really, “controllers” is so clinical.
Thankfully there is an answer though.
02-Jun-04 at 4:12 pm | Permalink
Nice joysticks. For the authentic arcade experience, you could jam 3 of the buttons down, and make the ‘left’ direction not work. With a hammer or something.
In an ideal world, all ‘controllers’ (Joypads! Joypads!) would be identical to the six button Sega Saturn one that they got in Japan. Best d-pad I’ve ever used for Streetfighter.
02-Jun-04 at 4:25 pm | Permalink
> six button Sega Saturn
Agreed, that’s probably like the ones I have at home with my chipped Saturn. Oddly I bought that box on the strength of one game as well – the flawless japanese XMvSF import.
02-Jun-04 at 4:43 pm | Permalink
> controller
Joypad. *folds arms defiantly*
> wget
Did the moose save my page?? This is so cool. Some of it is still marked “under construction” but if you can’t fix that then it’s okay, you’re not here to pander to my every whim (not as far as you know, anyway). I’m sorry my latest post on my .com is a tedious anecdote about my wee brothers. Sometimes I think family nostalgia is my only currency. Then I remember that I also like puns. And namechecking geek icons, as Miln-Oh! will confirm having oft indulged me in the post-Egg wee hours.
XOX
02-Jun-04 at 6:36 pm | Permalink
Geekery is where it’s at. It’s got to the stage where I’ve been shouting ‘door!’ when I can’t be arsed travelling anywhere (such as walking into town, or moving the two metres to the bar) like what they do in once-awesome comic book ‘The Authority’. Sadly, the door is yet to appear.
05-Jun-04 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
wand of sodomy! > ROFL.