“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Soul Blazer is a member of the prestigious Quintet Quintet, five cult games created by Japanese studio Quintet and published by Pre-Squared Enix. Around the era of Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, and WingDamage’s beloved Chrono Trigger, Quintet was slaving away at creating some of the most creative games of the SNES era.

In a time where Publishers were the face of gaming, Quintet stood out as one of the few developers who had complete control over their body of work.

Soul Blazer is a Zelda style Dungeon crawler that, like all Quintet games, revolves around a god, who in this case is named “The Master”. God is worried. His people, the Frelians, have had their souls ransacked by an unrelenting horde of sinister monsters created by his eternal enemy Death Toll, who may or may not be the personification of evil. To battle the onslaught of ferocious creatures, The Master creates you, the Warrior, to rain divine vengeance upon your unholy foes.

And by raining divine fire upon your unholy foes, I mean slowly swinging your sword. Slowly. Soul Blazer could very well have been one of those lost gems in the pantheon of lost gems, i.e. Earthbound or Secret of Evermore. But it suffers an incredibly weak opening that will test the limits of most casual JRPG players to the limit.

The Warrior feels like he’s thrust into the middle of a dungeon with a limp, inflatable baseball bat. Prepare to be one of the wimpiest RPG characters in the history of the genre. Enemies take five swipes of the sword to die, and the sword doesn’t even stun the enemies. Each battle turns into a minute long battle of dodging and slowly stepping backwards. When there’s around five to seven monsters in a room, this can get annoying, especially with monsters that cast magic.

But I soldiered on, and with the right armor, weapons, and spells, Soul Blazer evened out in difficulty. Soon, the sword takes a back seat to the magic, which sort of becomes the core of the gameplay. Certain bosses are immune to anything but the properly placed spell. Soon, when the game’s combat settles into a smoother ride, I focused much more on the world of Soul Blazer its self.

Quintet has some how stitched this strange, ethereal world together. It’s an odd pairing of traditional Japanese shinto Folklore and a traditional European village straight out of a Flemish painting. Yet, there’s sort of a gothic aesthetic to the village, an eeriness that rests in the souls of its inhabitants. It’s…. disconcerting, especially when the game starts planting little philosophical ideas in your head.

Why did I pick this game?

Quintet’s quintet is such a fascinating piece of gaming history, I felt obligated to try at least one of their titles out. Naturally, I tilted more to the Zelda style dungeon crawler more so then the standard JRPGs. I didn’t want to start with Actraiser, as it is already the much more talked about member of the Quintet Quintet.

How does it hold up with time?

Gameplay wise, it can’t touch the classics of the SNES era, like the aforementioned Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana. The early stages are going to be a real test for some players, and the game remains pretty slow up until the final stages.

But if you stick with it, you might find the same smart little game I found in Soul Blazer. It doesn’t quite have the same ambition as its peers, but it’s got heart, and that goes a long way in a JRPG.

"This is your Daddy's Crack Down"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In the days when our household only had a Genesis, we almost exclusively rented our video games. There were several we would see in magazines that we thought looked interesting, or would see the cover art in stores, but could never find to rent.

This is not one of those games. Until recently, I didn’t even realize there had been a Genesis game that shared the Crack Down name. I found it purely by accident when searching for information on the first Xbox 360 game, Crackdown. Had I seen any version of the game’s box art, I would have more likely pointed to laugh at the monocled baddie on the Mega Drive cover, or the fake Stormtrooper on the US version.

The Genesis version of Crack Down is a top down run and gun game that was originally for the arcades. You play as Ben or Andy, two generic muscle bound heroes common to games of the time.  You must stop the evil Mr. X, who I assume is the monocle guy from the UK release’s box art, by planting explosives around various buildings.

When I first started playing, I thought I was finding and disarming the bombs, which seemed much more in-line with being the hero. However, this was 1990 and all bets were off.

The action takes place from a top down perspective, which reminded me a lot of Guantlet, only with rockets and grenades. Around each level are X’s, which mark where you are to place each bomb. The bombs are automatically placed by walking over each X. The top of your screen shows a map of the level, with the location of all the level’s bomb placement spots clearly marked. Since each level has a fairly short time limit, this helps to avoid a lot of frustration. It also makes sense that people planning on blowing up a cyborg manufacturing facility would know where the bombs needed to be placed to accomplish that task.

Enemies are placed in specific locations, and new ones will constantly be spawning from various buildings and crates (they are cyborgs, after all) to keep you on your toes. Your arsenal includes a machine gun, rocket launcher,and screen clearing grenades. You can also punch fools. As with many video games, the common trope here is that your rangeless punch is more powerful than a rocket launcher.

The part of the screen where the action actually takes place is tiny. The entire top half is your HUD. Each side of that shows Ben and Andy’s number of lives and ammo, even when playing single player, and the middle is the level map. The bottom half of the screen is broken up for each player. Again, this is regardless of whether or not you are playing multiplayer. The view area is tiny, to say the least, which makes the incredible amount of slow down make no sense to me.

The one interesting mechanic Crack Down has is a cover system. By pressing yourself up against walls, your character will flatten himself up against them. This is a very important gameplay mechanic to master, as it is the only way to avoid most bullets, since both Ben and Andy walk like they are in their 80′s.

Why did I pick this game?

I noticed recently that the Genesis game was now on Virtual Console, so with the release of Crackdown 2, I thought it might be fun to go check out the other, completely unrelated Crack Down.

Like I mentioned above, I had never heard of this version until more recently.

How does it hold up with time?

Crack Down has a pretty steep learning curve. Death is instantaneous, as it follows the Contra style of one hit kills. You restart exactly where you left off with the message “Ready! Ben” (or, I assume Andy). The options allow for you to increase the number of lives and continues, and has multiple difficulty settings. I was playing on normal, single player and it was a pretty tough game.

Since Crack Down was clearly designed as a two player experience, playing in single player was a bit strange. Only having a quarter of the screen viewable just seemed silly, and the amount of slowdown (as mentioned above) was ridiculous.

The controls are imprecise. It is way too easy to push up against a wall while you are trying to aim your character in the appropriate direction to shoot. I found myself relying on the grenades way too much. Any time a puzzle involved moving platforms or pits, it was a guarantee I was going to burn through most of my lives trying to cross it. The hit detection for falling to your death is horrendous.

Now that I’ve played it, there is probably a reason I had never heard of this Crack Down before.

Crackdown 2 is one of the most brutal punishments one can inflict on a critic. There is nothing to say about Crackdown 2. At best, you can spin a handful of disappointments into a competent, but bland review. Once the review is over, that same critic will then place Crackdown 2 on a shelf, where it will sit for months. Later, he will realize it’s utter worthlessness, and eventually trade it in to some form of used game service. Its worth will be approximately seven dollars, and that man will look at himself and wonder, “Did this game really deserve this kind of time and effort?”

No. No it did not, metaphorical critic. It is not worth any human beings precious time or energy. This homogenized, joyless product is completely unworthy of the sixty dollar price tag attached to it, not even if some mega site like IGN or GameSpot had given it an acquittal for being no more then mindless fun. Is that what people really want? Mindless fun?

In Crackdown, you played as a genetically engineered police officer, created by the massive police force named The Agency. Through the power of jumping really high and shooting, the Agent was able metaphorically dismantle racism through the destruction of four innately racist gangs by assassinating their internal power structure. But the Agency was clearly unprepared for a force of goons even dumber then the gangs before: zombies. Unleashed by some generic terrorist cell called, you guessed it, “The Cell”, the horde of violent ghouls killed the last of the agents.

So the agency returns to its bread and butter and re-clones the original agent. But he’s different! He’s got a mask! And for some reason he’s been rebooted to level one. That goofy agency must have placed the good genes in a bag of spilling. The agency jettisons out the inferior clone back into the very familiar world of Pacific city, which has somehow remained exactly the same within the ten year time span, except for the occasional run down building. But that is not important. What’s really important is the agent’s epic to destroy the evil freaks through a series of exciting, cinematic set pieces; standing on a platform for a minute and a half. Nine times. And then the game is over. No joke.

Who’s really to blame for this hunk of garbage? Probably Microsoft Game Studios, who completely disregarded the poor folks at Ruffian, and gave them eight months to create a sequel to a massive sandbox title. Maybe you could have entrusted them with an actual budget to flesh out the original Crackdown. Just imagine if Microsoft had put some real money, time, and effort behind the Crackdown franchise. It could have been success. I mean, does no one think the concept of playing a badass super cop in an organic, interesting city is utterly incapable of success?

Look at inFamous, a critical and financial success for Sony, that retained many elements of Crackdown. If Microsoft had nurtured this IP properly as Sony had, Crackdown could have risen above its B minus position and blossomed into a Triple-A franchise. The game’s use of zombies is almost an ironic parody of the game itself; reborn into a hideous undead ghoul, not hungry for brains, but the money sitting in your wallet. It’s embarrassing for a publisher to not only release such an inferior product, but to kill a gold status IP in its infancy. So please, if you’re actually reading this, for god sakes, don’t feed this corpse, and let Crackdown die with any dignity it still has.

"Accomplishes it's purpose and works exactly how it sounds."

Although this review is about the Wii2HDMI adapter, I’ve also been using the VD-W3 Wii HDMI Upscaler Processor quite heavily the past few weeks. In this review I will be comparing the two devices.

Size

When I received the Wii2HDMI adapter, I was very surprised how compact it is compared to the VD-W3. After doing a bit of research, I quickly realized the Wii2HDMI is able to afford its compact size by omitting an upscaler.

Measurements:

• 1.3″ x 2.8″ x 0.5″
• 33 x 72 x 13 mm

"Wii2HDMI (left) vs VD-W3 Wii HDMI Upscaler Processor (right)"

Function

The primary purpose of this device is to convert from analog to digital so that you can use HDMI or DVI. Because there is no upscaler, there’s no real improvement or difference in image quality over the use of component cables. If you have been using composite cables, which max out at 480i, you will see a huge difference in image quality.

For me, the biggest advantage is the ability to connect to a computer monitor. The monitor I’m using doesn’t have an HDMI input, but does have DVI. I was able to use a $5 HDMI-to-DVI adapter from monoprice for this. Thankfully, there is a mini-audio 3.5mm jack on the Wii2HDMI as well for outputting audio, since DVI doesn’t transmit audio.

Since there’s no upscaling, you’re monitor needs to support 480p (and 480i for some older games) video mode. All TV’s equipped with HDMI inputs are required to support 480p video mode, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

Looking through posts on various forums before ordering, some users were worried this device might cause some lag in video display resulting from the conversion from analog to digital. From experience, I have not noticed any lag whatsoever.

Head to head comparison

Pros:

• Much smaller than VD-W3
• Doesn’t take up a USB port like the VD-W3
• $20 cheaper than the VD-W3

Cons:

• No upscaler
• No color enhancement settings or function
• Image quality no better than Component Cables

Conclusion

All things considered, both products are really great. I’m very happy with both.

If you are looking for a solution to hook up your Wii to a computer monitor, or have a spare HDMI port, and you are happy with the way the colors look without any enhancement, this is a great solution.

If you’re TV or Monitor has a terrible upscaler, or feel the colors are muted, and have no adjustment settings, you may want to consider the VD-W3. In which case, you’ll want to read Jesse’s review of the VD-W3. Your decision will most likely be based on your budget and the model of TV or Monitor you are using.

This review is based on the adapter provided to us by Neoya. The Wii2HDMI can be purchased at Neoya for $39.95.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

I have never been a PC gamer. When Half-Life came out for the PC, I was still rocking my Commodore 64 (which was just a teensy bit short in the RAM department). Besides I was too busy with my PS1 to worry about insanely awesome FPS games with pitch perfect atmosphere; I had some Battle Arena Toshinden to conquer.

In all seriousness Half-Life dropped with the force of a judo throw from Segata Sanshiro (which is equivalent to 10 megaton bombs.) It completely revolutionized the FPS genre. Everything from the graphics to the story to the puzzles to the combat pushed the genre in fantastic new directions. Even dedicated non-PC guys like myself stared enviously at our buddy’s copy and hoped for a console port.

Instead of a nameless space marine shooting legions of monsters, you are theoretical physicist Dr. Gordon Freeman. As you help your fellow scientists with some anomalous materials for their teleportation experiment, a resonance cascade is triggered which opens up a portal to the world of Xen. Aliens come pouring through this portal and at first, you are just trying to make your way to the surface to escape the research facility.

The game presents its story through a series of scripted sequences, rather than cut scenes. This means you never feel like you’ve lost control of the action, even when the game is herding you along predetermined paths.

Half Life is perfectly paced. The gameplay is constantly evolving and presenting you with new challenges. Just as you get used to fighting aliens, the marines show up and present an entirely different challenge. Then right as you start to think you’ve gotten the hang of the marines, you have to adapt to a whole new way of fighting enemies.

There are a couple of spots that are a pain in the butt and there is a little too much jumping for my tastes, but at this point I am nitpicking about the number of cup holders in the Bugatti Veyron.

Why did I pick this game?

I picked this game because it is amazing. You can only play so many Rise of the Robots and Skeleton Warriors before you need to rock out to something amazing. There is a reason that Valve is one of the most respected video game developers in the industry, and it all started with the original Half-Life.

How does it hold up with time?

I actually came to the Half-Life party way late. It was well after the PS2 version came out that I finally sat down and seriously played the game for the first time. So all of this hyperbole is for a game that was no longer on the bleeding edge of technology when I played it, and yet it remains one of my favorite games of all time.

The only thing that doesn’t stand the test of time is the graphics. The character models and textures really show their age.Everything else about Half Life is still fantastic. The combat is still amazing, and the rest of the industry is still trying to figure out how to tell a story as effectively.

I don’t think Half-Life is the greatest game of all time, but it is definitely in the discussion. If you consider yourself a gamer you need to play experience Half-Life. It stands as one of the true milestones in gaming history.

I’m sure you’ve already heard the Puzzle Quest games described as “Bejewelled with hit points”. It is a pretty base statement, but not entirely untrue. Puzzle Quest 2 continues the tradition of adding role playing elements to a match-3 puzzle game, but this newest version does a few things that make it more enjoyable than its predecessors.

At the start of the game, you once again pick a character class from a stable of role playing standards. As you would expect, the class determines your character’s strengths and weaknesses, and which equipment they can use. While I found the original game to be overbalanced in favor of the warrior classes, Puzzle Quest 2 seems to have improved its balance throughout the experience.

Your weapons and armor do more than give passive stats in this iteration. They are now usable in battles by collecting action points in the form of gauntlets on the battle field. You still match skulls to do basic damage, but I found myself relying much more on my weapons and spells this time around. It adds an extra layer of strategy to the battle system and makes it a heck of a lot less frustrating.

The battles themselves also seemed to have been greatly balanced over the first. I found the original to be incredibly frustrating after getting a few hours in. The AI opponents seemed to always know what blocks were about to fall from off screen, and would often magically set up completely unpredictable (to a human player) combos that were impossible to defend against. But the sequel fixes this.

The drops in Puzzle Quest 2 also feel a lot better. I found it much less frequent to see a single move produce a dozen or more combos from off-screen drops. That was a huge annoyance in the first game, and it seems to have been corrected for the sequel.

I also prefer this game’s more intimate take on the overworld. Instead of a map with tiny icons representing your character, various kingdoms, and monsters, you are actually at the human level via an isometric view of the surrounding area. Sure, it’s a cosmetic touch, but it has a much better feel than before. You actually get the sense that these characters exist in some sort of world, rather than as dots on a map.

As you would expect in an RPG, you will buy, sell, and find new gear. My main gripe with Puzzle Quest 2 is that when you are given a choice between gear from defeating a monster, you can’t compare the stats to what you already have equipped. Unless you have kept a detailed log of your equipment, you’ll find yourself guessing at what you should take.

There is also a built in hint system. In theory, it will suggest a move if you are taking to long to make a match. What I found would often happen is that it would immediately start pointing to a potential move, like an excited younger sibling pointing at the screen and going “Oooh, oooh!”. It’s not a major issue, though, as you can turn the arrow off if you want.

That’s another area where PQ2 feels a lot better than the original. In the first game, nearly every time you would use the AI’s suggestion, it would end in disaster. The aforementioned cascade of combos from off-screen in the opponents favor would have been laughable had it not been so maddeningly frustrating. They seemed to have fixed that, much to the joy of my sanity meter.

Puzzle Quest 2 also offers a variety of multiplayer modes. You can use the hero you have been building up in the single player campaign or even set up matches between the game’s various monsters. This gives it a lot of replayability since you can sit on the couch and battle with your friends, or play them over Xbox Live.

It may sounds like I am down on the original game, but I actually did enjoy it quite a bit. Puzzle Quest 2, while the same in its core mechanic, feels like an improvement in all the ways I could have asked for. It’s a great game for relaxing with on the couch. The additional mechanics added via the RPG elements help keep things feeling fresh for a lot longer than your standard match-3 game. All in all, it’s a fun package worth checking out.

This review is based on code of the final build of the Xbox Live Arcade version of Puzzle Quest 2 provided to us by D3Publisher.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

One of the coolest parts of playing video games as a kid was the feeling of exploration. Sure, back on the NES it was still in a pretty abstract way, but a well designed adventure could really suck you in. Even back then, when passing the controller back and forth with my friends to work our way through a game (old school co-op), we felt like we were there.

Never was this truer than of the original Metroid. It totally blew us away that we were free to explore the game’s world in whatever order we wanted. Sure, you needed to find new abilities to progress past certain obstacles, but that only added to the challenge and fun. But there weren’t nearly enough of this style of game. We were surprised and delighted to find there was a sequel to one of our favorite movies in game form, and it was in the Metroid style.

That game was The Goonies II.

Back then it didn’t bother us at all when a game’s plot was complete nonsense. The Fratellis have kidnapped six of the Goonies and a Mermaid named Annie. It is up to you, as Mikey, to save them.

I fully admit that that the plot of Goonies II is pure insanity. It was made in Japan as a sequel to a game that only came out in the states via the PlayChoice-10. We didn’t even realize that was why it was called #2. We all assumed it was a sequel to the film.

The main field of play is a 2D action platformer where Mikey uses various weapons like a yo-yo, boomerang, and bombs to defeat his enemies. As you progress, you will need to find various tools that will help you reach new areas and save all the Goonies, then Annie (the mermaid).

The secondary part of the game is a 3D first person area, reminiscent of (but a very much simplified version of) games like Shadowgate and Déjà Vu. Here is where you must use many of the tools you have collected to find hidden doorways, collect new items, and ultimately rescue your captured friends.

The 3D zones are also the connecting pathways between the various 2D areas. A very cool design concept was that the 2D map was actually double sided, with the warp zones in the 3D areas linking the two sides of the map.

Why did I pick this game?

Like most people who grew up in the 80′s, The Goonies was one of my favorite movies. This year is the film’s 25th anniversary and as strange as it sounds, the NES game Goonies II really ignited my love of the film. Games from that era were designed to be power fantasies for kids, making it feel like you were the one on a crazy adventure.

Since every kid I knew back then wanted to be a Goonie, it only made sense that playing through the game made us feel like part of the action.

How does it hold up with time?

The 2D segments of The Goonies II are solid even today. I was still able to jump in and find my way through the game with a minimum of frustration. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the original Metroid.

The 3D segments really slow down the action. I remember loving those parts as a kid because they felt so strange and mysterious. Nowadays, the slow interface of using your tools to bang on the various walls to find the hidden stuff starts to get tedious after a while.

One of the first strategy guides we ever had our hands on was simply called The Nintendo Player’s Guide. It is a black book with every major release up to that point laid out for you. If it wasn’t for the in-depth maps and hints in that book, I doubt I would ever have made it very far in Goonies II (or Rygar for that matter).

Going back for my recent playthrough, I thought it only fitting to once again use the book in tandem with playing through the game. I’m glad I did, as it made it a smooth ride that was as fun as I remembered it.

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is often referred to as a “dream sequel”. The original Sin & Punishment never made it to America in cartridge form, though it was later released on the Wii’s virtual console. It’s been a full decade since the release of the last game. Now in 2010, not only is there a sequel, it’s actually released outside of Japan.

For those not in the know, Sin & Punishment is a third-person rail shooter. In other words, it has more in common with Star Fox than House of the Dead. Quite possibly the best way to describe it is to take a Bullet-Hell SHMUP, combine it with a Run ‘n Gun game such as Contra, then put that in a 3D space.

Rather than focusing on power-ups as many arcade-style shooters do, Star Successor uses a handful of actions and forces you to master them all (or die trying). You can fly around in all directions, jump (if you’re on the ground), dodge roll, rapidly shoot, perform a charge shot, slice up fools with a melee attack, and lock-on to targets.

Control of your character is independent of your reticule. While you can move around with the nunchuck, all your aiming is done with the Wii Remote. The dual stick control scheme of the first game is available, but the Wii Remote and nunchuck setup works so incredibly well that any other controller feels like a big step backwards.

"FACT: If you punch a giant eel in the face, it WILL explode."

Since the camera is on-rails, it’s constantly on the move in very exciting (though scripted) ways. There is never a dull moment in Star Successor. At any given time, there are far more things to shoot than you could ever hope to keep up with. It is literally impossible to destroy every enemy in the game even if you are an expert.

Every stage in the game has a ton of boss battles. These encounters are as memorable as they are numerous. Each fight features incredibly bizarre enemy designs, clever attack patterns, and no re-hashing whatsoever. Even the end of the game, which makes you THINK all the bosses will be re-used in a huge “boss rush”, uses completely new forms that hardly resemble anything you’ve fought before.

It’s not just the bosses that ooze with variety. Each level has a distinctly different theme, often with plenty of environmental diversity throughout. The game is a constant adrenaline rush, further enhanced by it’s high energy soundtrack featuring a lot of electronica and even some classic slap bass.

Because things are so busy, paying attention to dodging with your character and aiming with your reticule can require some serious multi-tasking skills. Fortunately, the game has subtle ways of helping you out. After charge shots, your gun needs to cool down (though your rapid fire still works during this time) and it’s hard to watch the meter go back down. There’s a little noise that happens when your gun is ready to go again. It may not seem like much, but little touches like this become your greatest ally, especially on Hard Mode, where things get even crazier.

"Stage 3 nods to the sidescrolling shooters of old."

Much like in the first game, your melee attack can reflect missiles (among other things) back at your opponents. It’s shocking just how many different kinds of things you can send flying at enemies. And where the projectiles go is not necessarily to the sender, but to where you are aiming, allowing for even more crazy strategies that involve making use of one enemy’s attacks to kill another.

It may not be a particularly long game, but there’s a lot of replay value here. Each difficulty is well designed, actually changing bullet patterns instead of just increasing damage. There are two playable characters, each with their own unique play-styles. There’s local co-op, which allows a second player to give you a hand in firepower, though without an on-screen character to control. And finally, you can upload your scores to online leaderboards.

Trying to get the highest score really enhances the fun. Each enemy you kill adds to your multiplier while taking damage decreases it. Standing on the ground makes your score go up constantly, but is often far more dangerous than flying.  There are also lots of medals you can acquire in each level for additional points that will appear after meeting certain, unspecified criteria. If you die at all, your score goes back down to zero. But don’t worry, the game keeps your highest score for the level, regardless of whether or not it’s the same life you used to beat the stage boss.

While Treasure may be known for how hardcore their games can be, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is surprisingly accessible in ways that won’t offend seasoned gamers. First off, there are unlimited continues. There are also checkpoints everywhere, including between boss forms. Since even a single death resets your score anyway, the real challenge is beating the level in as few lives as possible.

That isn’t to say Star Successor is easy. There were several bosses later in the game that I had to retry far more times than I care to admit. But it’s nice not having to replay sections you’ve already won each time you fail. And you will fail. The second to last boss in particular is where the Bullet-Hell analogy really comes into play.

The visuals aren’t exactly mind blowing, but they get the job done. The 3D models are a bit low poly, but it’s a wise sacrifice as the game is able to run silky smooth even when the screen is drenched with enemies. The incredibly bizarre art direction combined with a sensory overload-inducing amount of enemies on screen at a consistently great frame-rate manages to make the game a treat to look at in spite of its humble poly-counts.

The story is just as nonsensical as the first game. It involves Earth-4, Earth-5, Inner Space, Outer Space, something called Nebulox, and lots of poorly acted dialogue (voiced in Japanese or English depending on your preference). I’ve finished both games, but couldn’t tell you what either is about. The cutscenes are good for a laugh thanks to their campyness, but can also be easily skipped if you just want to jump into the action.

The game itself is often nonsensical too. You will fight a submarine that surfaces up from lava, shadow dolphins that shoot beach-balls of death at you, a centaur in space, and a baby lizard thing that promptly begins operating a crane after being vomited out by the previous boss. I could go on, but the point is that this is a game that will never stop surprising you on your first play-through.

Could you beat Sin & Punishment: Star Successor in a renting? Probably. But this is a game that you’ll want to replay over and over again. I started it over on Hard the very same night that I beat it on Normal. And if Sin & Punishment 3 came out tomorrow, I’d buy it on day one.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Back in the glory days, when companies would send out VHS tapes to promote their games, there was Donkey Kong Country. Rare took the series from its arcade roots and transformed it into a platformer, boasting revolutionary 3D graphics without the need for additional hardware.

The premise is simple. The Kremlings, a group of reptilian creatures, have stolen Donkey Kong’s giant banana hoard. With the help of his friend, Diddy, they must go through each stage, defeat a boss, and get more bananas back.

Let’s face it, you’re not playing Donkey Kong Country for an epic story. You’re playing it for its promise of solid platforming. And that’s a promise the game has no trouble delivering on.

There aren’t a ton of abilities at your disposal. A trusty run and jump is there, of course, with most enemies vulnerable to a Mario-style hop. You can also slam the ground, do a somersault (or cartwheel if you’re Diddy), and do what Donkey Kong is known for best: picking up and throwing barrels. More advanced techniques, such as somersaulting off a ledge, then performing a mid-air jump, add an extra challenge to obtaining secrets hidden in each level.

The role of power-ups are filled by the animal friends that you ride. In certain levels, you can find a rhino, swordfish, frog, or ostrich to hop on the back of. Each of the animals has their own unique set of abilities. For example, you can hover with the ostrich or use the rhino to ram enemies with a mighty charge. Much like Yoshi in the Mario series, you’ll lose them if you get hit, but you can hop back on. The different abilities each animal has adds a nice variety to the game.

Donkey Kong and Diddy can only be hit once each. But together, that means you have two hits. Both in single player and in co-op, the game uses a tag-team system. When one character is hit, the reserve character comes out, if no reserve character is left, it’s game over. You can also switch characters manually. While this is marginally useful in single player since Donkey and Diddy have subtle differences (like Diddy’s inability to head-stomp larger baddies), it’s most useful in co-op, when you want to switch who’s in control without having to get hit.

But you don’t have to get through the whole stage on two hits. Check points and barrels refilling the reserve character are scattered throughout the levels to make things more manageable.

One of the best aspects of Donkey Kong Country is how many secrets there are. Every single level has a ton of hidden things to discover. There are letters to collect in each stage, numerous bonus stages to find, golden animal statues that can lead you to even more bonus stages; the list goes on.

The game also provides enough challenge to be fun without being too frustrating. However, the bosses are an exception. Many of the bosses are total pushovers and not nearly as difficult as some of the levels leading up to them. The levels themselves had a great sense of variety. There are a few levels with unique aspects that are actually pulled off well rather than feeling overly gimmicky. Donkey Kong Country is one of the only games to ever make me excited to play a mine cart level.

The graphics, which were a huge selling point during its release, still look good today. Making use of pre-rendered, 3D models seems like it wouldn’t age well, but thanks to the very cartoony style the game sticks to, it looks great even today; especially the smooth animations.

Why did I pick this game?

I loved all three Donkey Kong Country games growing up. When Donkey Kong Country Returns was revealed at this year’s E3, it got me in the mood to play the original game right away. Since I still own the cartridges of the whole trilogy, it was simply a matter of hooking the SNES up and getting to it.

How does it hold up with time?

While it has admittedly been awhile since I last played it, Donkey Kong Country is just as good as I remember it. The level design is fun, full of challenging segments, completely stuffed with secrets, and provides a lot of variety. The game still looks great and the music from series composer, David Wise, is still top notch.

Platformers were plentiful in this era, but Donkey Kong Country is a cut above most. And with tag-team co-op, the fun can be shared with a friend. If you enjoy the genre, you really can’t go wrong with Donkey Kong Country.

Sometimes, a mystery is surrounded by a puzzle; sometimes dozens of small, intricate puzzles that would confound and befuddle your average government agent.

Hidden away in the depths of FBI headquarters is the office of Nelson Tethers. Tethers is the top (and only) agent in the bureau’s Department of Puzzle Research. When a conundrum is too discombobulating for the rest of the FBI, it is up to Agent Tethers to elucidate the situation in Telltale’s latest, Puzzle Agent.

The first thing you’ll notice with Puzzle Agent is a departure from Telltale’s usual style of point and click adventure gaming. Sure, those elements are there in a small way, but the main focus of the game is on brain teasers. It is no secret that Puzzle Agent was heavily inspired by Level-5′s popular Professor Layton series on the Nintendo DS. They come right out and say as much in the game’s description on their website.

Set in the snowy town of Scoggins, MN, it is your job to find out why the town’s eraser factory has shut down. The factory provides erasers to the White House, and is Scoggin’s main source of income; which is why it’s sudden closure is so suspicious.

Much like the Layton series that inspired it, Puzzle Agent has you wandering the town, finding and solving logic puzzles to continue the storyline. The puzzles are worked into the plot a little smoother than they are in Layton, and are handled in mostly humorous ways. The puzzles themselves vary quite a bit in difficulty. As with all logic puzzles, once you “get” the answer, you’ll wonder how you didn’t see it in the first place.

If you do get stumped, Puzzle Agent has a really good hint system built in. There are three levels of hints, which start as a nudge in the right direction and end with more or less giving you the answer. Once the puzzle is solved, you are given a rating based on how many guesses it took you to solve and how many hints used. This made me try my hardest to not use any hints and only make a guess once I was absolutely sure I had the answer correct.

But they don’t give you an infinite number of hints either. As it turns out, chewing gum helps Agent Tethers think, but the town is all out of gum! As you traverse the town, you will find ABC gum stuck to things around the city which you can collect. These are what you spend to take a hint on puzzles. I’m happy to say I didn’t end up needing to use too many pieces of the gum that I collected on my adventure, but even if you do, there seems to be plenty of the stuff hidden around the city. Running out was never a concern.

I had fun playing through Puzzle Agent. The art by Graham Annable added a humorous edge to the games strange atmosphere. The writing will appeal to those that enjoy X-Files or Twilight Zone story types, as long as you don’t mind them being on the wacky side of things. The gameplay is casual enough that it should appeal to gamers of all levels. Puzzle Agent is an easy recommendation for the puzzle lover in your life.

This review is based on review code of the PC version of Puzzle Agent provided to us by Telltale Games.