switchblade wrote:

Wow.... You weren't joking when you said that YouTube fucked up the video compression completely.

You didn't make any small mention of MOBA's like League of Legends or DOTA 2, and CRPG's like Baldur's Gate, Ultima, and others like that. Then again, MOBA's would fall into the Strategy genre, and Baldur's Gate and Ultima are still RPG's at their core.

Either way, talking about genres will always be an ongoing argument that will never end. I could easily say that Metroid Prime for GameCube is a: platformer, shooter, and adventure game, even though some people give that game the FPP (First Person Platformer) genre designation.

Actually, the render itself was like that, even though the raw footage is fine. I have no idea why because the bitrate is the same and I can't imagine encoding quality can vary THAT dramatically at the same bitrate. x_x;

I missed a lot of stuff, including a lot to do with Strategy as it's the genre I have the least experience with due to my inability to do well in most strategy games. I mostly just wanted to cover the basics and the sub-genres I myself run into the most often. Covering EVERYTHING would've been near-impossible. :P

As for Metroid Prime, Nintendo's official stance is that it's a "First Person Adventure", which likely makes the most sense as yes, there is platforming, but it's not the core challenge of the game and in fact, most of the platforming in the game is very tame save for a few specific spots.

Oh my the "terrible" WDK is back 😉 Seriously though it was an interesting filler episode. Even my ears bleed every time I hear the "word" Shmup, it is called Shootemup. Not the so-called abbreviation. But really interesting episode 😀 we do have certain things in common , you and I. And you saying that genres evolve, I must agree. But Beatemups were called beatempups before they split into "fighters" and then "beatemups". Cause I still remember SF2 being called a 2D beatemup, back in the day and Final Fight was not the first beatemup(even though it is a smashing great game series), Just look at Double Dragon among others , such as Bare Knuckle/Streets Of Rage 😀 But seriously , good episode 😀

WRT episode 53: http://pixelmusement.com/adg/ep0053.html

Have you seen this? http://www.openroadsgame.com/

It's a version of the game that runs natively right in your browser, through the magic of HTML5.

SquallStrife wrote:

WRT episode 53: http://pixelmusement.com/adg/ep0053.html

Have you seen this? http://www.openroadsgame.com/

It's a version of the game that runs natively right in your browser, through the magic of HTML5.

Interesting... It's missing the shadow effect so it can be a little more difficult to tell where you're going to land, but it's neat that it's not just emulating the game but is actually its own engine with high-resolution high-framerate graphics. :)

I'll update the page for the game next time I update my website. :B

Just wanted to quickly mention that the next ADG episode is going to be a few hours late and will likely go up early-morning Eastern Time on Saturday, rather than around midnight. This episode has been all kinds of tricky to make and I've had to balance making it while dealing with other personal issues, AND despite being well past my bedtime I'm still working on it, so once it's ready to render I'm going to bed while it renders. Hopefully it's worth the wait, though at the same time it could be one of my more controversial episodes... Time will tell. :B

Cool. Looking forward to seeing the controversy, Kris. 😀

Ancient DOS Games Episode 186 - Little Big Adventure / Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure is online!

So... this is actually another popular game I don't like. :O

*immediately hated by 99% of the internet*

...yeah, I'm well aware tons of people DO like it, and I understand why because when I was a kid, I WANTED to like this game. Many aspects of it I'm perfectly OK with, but there's two big things I'm not OK with, and that's its controls and its insane level of difficulty. These are NOT things I want out of a game like this, but to cap off this extra-long episode, I explain a bit of logic around how people are able to forgive the game of these shortcomings and still enjoy it, so yeah, I get why people love this game and if you're one of those people, there's nothing wrong with that at all. :)

This reminds me of Battletoads for the NES, which seems to have very similar positive and negative qualities. Great graphics, awesome sound, varied level design, cool enemies, silly animations, decent controls. However, the game is utterly without mercy by level 3 and I have a hard time getting to level 5, but still I love the game.

I've never really played LBA, but to me it looks like one of those games where they've spent more time on the graphics than on the gameplay. It still looks interesting, but I'd likely be frustrated by the controls, cheap deaths, and save system.

I remember playing a demo of Relentless on a PC Gamer CD. The animation was incredibly smooth even on our 25 megahertz 486SX. Could never get past the first room, though!

Funnily enough, I've never heard about this game until about a few years ago. Looks interesting, but I can't imagine that it's any fun to play.

Then again, I could say the exact same thing of games like Bioforge as well as a certain other title by Infogrames. 😉

switchblade wrote:

Funnily enough, I've never heard about this game until about a few years ago. Looks interesting, but I can't imagine that it's any fun to play.

Then again, I could say the exact same thing of games like Bioforge as well as a certain other title by Infogrames. 😉

I actually played LBA back in the day and might have even finished it if I'm not mistaken. I really loved this game, though I think at the time I was using walkthroughs for most games. Game magazines published them and I didn't have the patience to figure out games on my own. As a result there are many games that I played with a printed solution and today I don't remember much from them even though I loved them at the time (Flashback and Another World for example).

I remember the controls in LBA being really finicky, to the point that I tried to play it again a few years ago but quickly gave up. Same problem with Bioforge and Alone in the Dark, both games that I loved at the time but can't bring myself to play again now, due to bad controls.

Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 186 - Little Big Adventure / Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure is online! […]
Show full quote

Ancient DOS Games Episode 186 - Little Big Adventure / Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure is online!

So... this is actually another popular game I don't like. 😳

*immediately hated by 99% of the internet*

...yeah, I'm well aware tons of people DO like it, and I understand why because when I was a kid, I WANTED to like this game. Many aspects of it I'm perfectly OK with, but there's two big things I'm not OK with, and that's its controls and its insane level of difficulty. These are NOT things I want out of a game like this, but to cap off this extra-long episode, I explain a bit of logic around how people are able to forgive the game of these shortcomings and still enjoy it, so yeah, I get why people love this game and if you're one of those people, there's nothing wrong with that at all. 😀

Weirdly, I don't remember this game at all despite it being released during a time I bought and played tons of games and subscribed to all the computer gaming magazines.

Just from watching your gameplay videos and hearing about the awkwardness of the controls, the game reminds me a bit of Crusader: No Remorse. Similar perspective, similarly good graphics, similar awkward controls.

clueless1 wrote:

Just from watching your gameplay videos and hearing about the awkwardness of the controls, the game reminds me a bit of Crusader: No Remorse. Similar perspective, similarly good graphics, similar awkward controls.

Similar for sure, but Crusader's controls have LBA's beat in a couple ways, despite being buggier. The first is that when you aim your gun, you get a crosshair; something LBA REALLY needed for aiming the magic ball. The second is that the Silencer you play as moves a LOT faster and can sidestep as well as roll to get into position quickly. All things which lend itself to better combat control, and it's combat or anything action-based where the quality of your controls rapidly becomes apparent.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 187 - The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One is online!

If this particular video seems lesser in production quality than usual, please understand that the past number of days have been extremely stressful for me for multiple reasons and that it was extremely difficult to find a quiet time to actually do my voiceover, and even then I had to rush to get it done. x_x

Still, hopefully I at least got the point across about the unique aspects of the game without my personal opinion being a hindrance to that. I didn't enjoy the game, but I felt much of what was wrong with it was subjective and that there would still be plenty of people who would enjoy the game.

Besides, the graphics are very colourful and the music (at least on an MT-32) is AMAZING. :O

I couldn't tell that you were feeling rushed or stressed and the production quality is right up there with the rest.

Gemini000 wrote:

Besides, the graphics are very colourful and the music (at least on an MT-32) is AMAZING. 😳

It's also amazing this is Frank Klepacki's work.

Gemini000 wrote:

Ancient DOS Games Episode 187 - The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One is online! […]
Show full quote

Ancient DOS Games Episode 187 - The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One is online!

If this particular video seems lesser in production quality than usual, please understand that the past number of days have been extremely stressful for me for multiple reasons and that it was extremely difficult to find a quiet time to actually do my voiceover, and even then I had to rush to get it done. x_x

Still, hopefully I at least got the point across about the unique aspects of the game without my personal opinion being a hindrance to that. I didn't enjoy the game, but I felt much of what was wrong with it was subjective and that there would still be plenty of people who would enjoy the game.

Besides, the graphics are very colourful and the music (at least on an MT-32) is AMAZING. 😳

Very good review. Also There is this one YouTuber who made a video on the ways to die in Legend of Kyrandia Book One and he said said something similar to what you said about Brandon. Yeah games like KQ4 for example musically sounding is awesome with an MT-32.

If you want to you can update your info about Dark Forces because you can get the game from Gog.com for $6 bucks as of January 20th 2015. Also I just watched a long play of the Amiga version of TMNT and it is a more of a complete version compared to the DOS version and it fixes the 5 fatal flaws that the Dos version had. 1 being the impossible jump, 2. Having all of the mini boss battles that the NES version has including the mini boss music. 4. Having the boss music included in all stages. And 5. Having Pizza in the final 2 stages of the game in the correct locations. However SubWeapon drops are still rare.

You can tell that The Legend of Kyrandia and the Eye of the Beholder games were made by the same company, just look at the jewels.

Great Hierophant wrote:

You can tell that The Legend of Kyrandia and the Eye of the Beholder games were made by the same company, just look at the jewels.

The man responsible is probably Rick Parks who had a very distinctive style:

Re: Rick Parks

Thanks for the review Gemini000 - for some reason I never bought this game at the time of its release even though I loved Lands of Lore which was also developped by Westwood. When I was looking for good MT-32 soundtracks a few years ago the game caught my attention and I decided to give it a go recently. I love the graphics and the music but wasn't sure about the gameplay. Now your video has definitely steered me away from trying to complete it, unless I do it with a walkthrough!