The history of video games has been plagued with numerous mediocre titles featuring popular characters, doing things outside their comfort zone. Well okay, they haven’t ALL been mediocre; generally the ones with Mario in the title are worth taking a look at. I can’t say the same for Dr. Robotonik’s Mean Bean Machine or Link’s Crossbow training, though.

Mega Man, a character held near & dear to the hearts of most of the Wing Damage crew, has starred in several lackluster spin-off titles. In this month’s “I Am Error,” we take a look at three of ‘em – Mega Man Soccer, Mega Man Battle & Chase and Super Adventure Rockman.

If you have played any of these titles in the past or have access to play them now, please do and email us or comment with your thoughts. We’ll read your missives on the next edition of the “I Am Error” podcast, which will be available for consumption in just a few weeks.

Mega Man Soccer

Mega Man Soccer (SNES, 1994) has one advantage over other sports-based spinoff – it has A STORY. Should you elect to play the “Capcom Championship Mode,” you’ll find our hero watching a soccer match with Roll and Dr. Light. Before the game’s conclusion, robots take over the field heralding Dr. Wily’s latest evil plan; he plans on taking over the world by controlling the game of soccer. Wowza!

If you’re not one for meaty narratives, you may play in Exhibition, Tournament or League mode.

Mega Man Battle & Chase

There’s no denying Capcom was heavily influenced by Nintendo’s Mario Kart when creating Mega Man Battle & Chase (PS1, 1997), a kart racer featuring Mega Man & Co. No new ground is broken here; it’s just a colorful racing game where each participant has an attack move they may use against their opponents.

There are three basic game modes – Grand Prix (1 player), Time Trial (1 player; 12 tracks) and a multiplayer Versus Mode. So, it’s basically Mega Man Kart, which some might consider a good thing.

NOTE: Looking for an easy way to play this one? If so, we suggest picking up a copy of the Mega Man X Collection for Gamecube & Playstation 2. It features several Mega Man titles, including Battle & Chase. This anthology may be purchased from Amazon.com for around $10.

Super Adventure Rockman

Super Adventure Rockman, a Full Motion Video game released in Japan for the Sega Saturn & Playstation in 1998, never made its way to American shores, thus the use of “Rock” and not “Mega” in the title. Luckily for us, Youtube users with too much time on their hands have completed the game and uploaded video clips of the entire game.

It should be no surprise that Super Adventure Rockman is more focused on narrative than our previous two titles. The plot of the game revolves around Dr. Wily using an alien computer to reboot several of his robot creations destroyed by Mega Man in previous games. The events of the story play out through a series of fully animated cut scenes brought about by decisions made by the player. Oh, and you occasionally are allowed to fight in a First-person Shooter styled battle. Exciting, right?

So dear readers, you now know what Jonah, Dan and I have to endure this month. Again, I ask that if you’ve suffered through any of these yourself, please let us know with an email. Your experiences, along with ours, will be detailed in the next episode of the I Am Error podcast.

Capcom gave the official word on the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 today on their blog. With the game still not greenlit, the prototype delayed indefinitely, and dev room blog updates slowing down to a trickle, the writing was certainly on the wall. Still, after over a decade of waiting for a sequel, it is a mighty blow to fans of the series.

With the cancellation of Mega Man Universe and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune’s departure still fresh in mind, the news of Legends 3‘s death has led many to wonder what the future holds for the blue bomber. Maybe now we can get a Mega Man Legends Official Complete Works art book. Too Soon?

Source: Capcom Unity

The most successful promoter will get a free Nintendo 3DS, the new D-Arts Rockman X figure, a Servbot Bobble Bud, and a Mega Man Legends 3 poster. Second and third place will get these prizes as well (minus the 3DS). Additionally, there are a few special prizes winners will be able to choose from including an alternate signed Mega Man Legends 3 poster and complete copies of Mega Man X and Mega Man 8.

To read the contest rules, go to the official contest page. To see the fabulous prizes you could win, check out this post. But you better hurry! The contest ends May 31st.

“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.

As the resident Mega Man fan here, you… oh wait, I guess Jesse is here too. As the resident other Mega Man fan here, you might think I love the series all over and I think it can do no wrong. I mean, I do maintain a Mega Man fansite and try to shill for it at every opportunity I get. But the truth is I’m pretty discerning in what I see as quality in games, and Mega Man 5 is an interesting case. While it was the first Mega Man game I ever owned and I do have fond memories of playing it, I’ve come to determine it’s one of the weakest games in the series.

It’s by no means a terrible game; it was derived from a tried and true formula and had the benefit of a few years of experience and fine tuning. It’s probably still one of the better NES games out there. But Mega Man 5 is also where the series really starts to run out of steam. If Mega Man 2 was lightning in a bottle, Mega Man 5 was a bottle opener. Had I not been 10 when I played this game, my perspective of the whole franchise might be wildly skewed from what it is today.

So let’s get to the details. In Mega Man 5, Dr. Wily creates a shape-shifting robot to impersonate Proto Man and kidnap Dr. Light, making Proto Man appear to be the villain. Oops, did I spoil it? Truth be told, this is actually a fairly interesting story. Proto Man is a very mysterious figure introduced in Mega Man 3, where you only find out at the end that he’s Mega Man’s long lost robrother. Proto Man only makes a brief appearance in 4, so a Proto Man-centric story seems like an interesting place to explore. Though, since this is one of my first Mega Man games, I probably figured this Proto Man guy was just around all the time and the significance was lost on me.

Mega Man 5′s new features are pretty underwhelming. He’s now equipped with the Super Mega Buster, which allows him to charge up an energy blast the size of his body, any time he wants, with no real cost. This effectively negates any challenge the majority of enemies might wield. The game also introduces a robotic bird that follows Mega Man around and attacks enemies by crashing into them, although you have to find plates that spell MEGAMANV to unlock him. Beat is pretty useful against certain bosses, but otherwise isn’t all that amazing. And is it really any fun to just run around and let Beat do all the work?

Finally, they changed how Rush Coil works, which is just ridiculous. Now instead of launching you into the air, Rush launches himself up with you on top. As newbish as it sounds, there are so many times I’ve slipped off this and made Rush leap up without me. Fortunately, there are fewer places than ever that you’ll need to actually use Rush Coil. This style of Rush Coil was never revisited in another Mega Man game.

But the real meat and potatoes of any Mega Man game is the bosses; the Robot Masters, and their weapons. And this is where Mega Man 5 really begins to falter. I do have to praise the Robot Masters for being on the unique side, and there are a handful which use themes previously not seen in a Mega Man title. But at the same time, they kind of come off as… un-MegaManish. And I can’t really put my finger on why that is. Perhaps it’s because they started getting too detailed looking, eschewing the simple but effective designs of the previous games. And honestly, there’s nothing especially cool about a Robot Master modeled after a steam engine, or a Robot Master made of bricks. Sure, every Mega Man game has at least a couple of oddballs, and the likes of Napalm Man and Gravity Man are pretty cool. The Mega Man 5 crew ultimately accomplishes being one of the more unique sets of bosses, yet at the same time it’s almost entirely uninteresting.

What’s much worse than the Robot Masters are their stages. They are largely devoid of any interesting features. Something is definitely wrong when you introduce new stage types such as a train, a space station, and a Vietnam War-esque jungle military base, and yet none of them make a strong impression. Wave Man’s stage doesn’t even have enemies during the entire first half of it. Only Gravity Man’s stage comes off as particularly interesting, where the gravity is constantly being flipped and you spend stretches walking on the ceiling. I would have much rather had this concept revisited in Dr. Wily’s castle instead of the ceiling presses from Dust Man’s stage in Mega Man 4.

Speaking of the castles, I will concede those stages are better designed and provide a real challenge. It’s a nice treat if you’ve invested yourself this far into the game. Also, I love that Dark Man’s castle is shaped like Proto Man’s head, as if Dr. Wily thought he had to try that hard to make sure Proto Man appeared to be the villain.

Then there are the weapons. The only nice thing I can really say of them is they’re better than the weapons you get in Mega Man 6. I would suppose Crystal Eye is the best weapon for its low energy consumption and ability to split into smaller crystals that ricochet off walls. Gravity Hold is interesting, but uses too much energy to be used effectively. Gyro Attack is a take off of Magnet Missile, except slower and you have to prompt which direction it goes. Charge Kick only activates while sliding, and joins Napalm Bomb and Water Wave as weapons that only work on the ground’s surface. Power Stone isn’t awful but you’d be lucky to hit anything that isn’t right next to you. Star Crash at least has a wide area for a barrier, and you can throw it which makes it entirely better than the previous title’s Skull Barrier. You also get the Super Rod with Star Crash, which is an interesting but not highly useful device. It’d be fun to use the arrows to ride through stages if not for the fact doing this immediately drains the power. Ultimately there is no weapon better than your ridiculously powerful charged shot, which you start the game with.

Other than that, it’s pretty typical Mega Man fare. A lot of the game’s little enemies come off as weird shapes and don’t have much character, though they did use this game to really diversify the types of Metalls and Joes. The game’s music is good and well composed, and fun to listen to as a soundtrack. But as game music, it comes off as more environmental and doesn’t really push you as hard. A lot of the songs are long and overly technical as opposed to just relying on a strong, catchy melody and a good beat. And why is there only one theme for the respective castle stages? This just seems entirely lazy. At least they’re some of the game’s stronger themes (if you haven’t realized, Mega Man 5 only starts getting good after you beat the eight Robot Masters).

All in all, you just get the feeling the developers really stopped caring with Mega Man 5. When you look at the first three games in the series, each one builds off the last and adds more content and ideas. But following Mega Man 4, it’s like Capcom decided, “This is enough for a Mega Man game. We don’t have to do anything more.” Evolution of the series became centered around adding useless features and using plot contrivances to make you believe Dr. Wily isn’t the real villain. Again, it’s not an awful game, but Mega Man 5 wastes a lot of its potential just being phoned in and cookie cutter, and that’s a major warning sign for any series.

Why did I pick this game?

I have a friend who swears up and down that this is his favorite classic Mega Man game of all time, and I really just can’t grasp why that is. Granted, it’s not like I’m discontent to let him sit with his opinion, but I’ve lately felt the urge to go back and analyze it to see if there’s something I’m really missing.

Besides that, as I mentioned, this was my first Mega Man game and I have fond experiences with it as a kid. I can even remember when I thought the game was pretty hard! It’s fascinating to me that a game that holds such strong nostalgic value really turns out to be one of the laziest Mega Man games ever made.

How does it hold up over time?

Honestly… pretty well. I mean yeah, it was a lazy, dumbed down Mega Man game, but it was always that. While I may be old enough now to realize how hollow so much of the game’s content is, it’s not like it’s any worse to play now. It’s still Mega Man. It still has tight, well-defined controls. It just doesn’t offer up much of an adventure to go with it. Unless you disliked this game back in 1992, it still holds up well now. It hasn’t aged any more than any other NES game in comparison to today’s high definition, throbbing polygon games.

"No seriously... we're not making it up this time."

We don’t normally cover any news on WingDamage (other than on the podcast), but today is different. As long time readers and listeners of the Barrel Roll! podcast are already aware, Mega Man Legends is a series that’s near and dear to us. We do everything we can to make sure a sequel will get in development from spreading the word about what makes the games great to posting a PSA to suggest it in Capcom Unity’s suggestion box.

Well it finally happened… seriously.

After over a year and a half of jokingly confirming Mega Man Legends 3 on our podcast, we’ll finally be able to confirm it for real on next week’s episode. In honor of that very special episode, please take this opportunity to share your thoughts on the series, past and future, in the comments section of this post, or email them to us at podcast@wingdamage.com and maybe we’ll share them on the show.

Check out the juicy details of the game over at The Mega Man Network, share your thoughts with us, and never give up hope that dreams can come true.

Thanks, Capcom Unity!

"More faux retro goodness from Capcom."

When Mega Man 9 was revealed, it was a huge surprise. Going back to the visuals and gameplay of the NES era was a bold move. Generally, the response was positive. But with 9 already out, will Mega Man 10‘s continued use of the faux retro design feel as welcome?

Those who played the last entry will know what they’re getting into as far as the format goes. Eight new robot masters, new stages, and of course, new weapons. But there are a few new features this time around. Proto Man is available right from the start instead of being released as paid DLC. Those hungering for the charging and sliding abilities Mega Man left behind in his retro reboot might feel more at home with him.

With the return of Time Attack mode comes an all new Challenge Mode. Here you can play mini stages, some of which won’t be unlocked until you play through the normal game. The short nature of the challenge stages allows them to focus on difficult sections without forcing you to replay very much of them if you fail. They are set up in a way that could actually prove as a useful tool for players looking to hone their platforming skills.

"Time Attack Mode is back along with the all new Challenge Mode."

The level design in Mega Man 10 is quite varied. Many of the stages have unique elements such as platforms that need to be powered up via a treadmill, sand storms that both obscure your vision and push you to the left or right, and even alternate paths. What’s impressive is that these elements never feel too gimmicky. Instead, each stage has a unique flavor, involving more than just changed aesthetics, without ever getting in the way of the core platforming gameplay.

You’ll run into mini-bosses in at least half of the stages. Like the stages themselves, each one is interesting and accent the levels effectively. The robot masters are a bit “hit or miss”. Bots like Sheep Man and Pump Man are just plain bizarre (in a good way) while others like Commando Man and Chill Man are largely forgettable.

Each weapon you receive is enjoyable to use, with the exception of Thunder Wool (Sheep Man’s weapon). In fact, I found it easier to defeat the robot master who’s weak to it with the Mega Buster. In spite of that, it can be useful for hitting things high above you. Other weapons that I thought were going to very derivative, ended up feeling fairly fresh. While there is a “leaf shield clone”, it behaves in a different enough manner, both while taking damage and while firing it at the enemy, that it felt justified.

Mega Man 10, while a bit daunting at first, definitely feels easier than 9. There are far less instant-death traps and extra wide gaps to jump. That isn’t to say that Normal Mode is a cakewalk. You’ll still die a lot, but it definitely feels like Inti Creates let up on the difficulty a bit on this one.

"Play as Proto Man without paying extra."

Of course, if you still aren’t able to get anywhere, you can always use the game’s new Easy Mode. Not only is it easier than normal, it’s quite possibly the easiest Mega Man experience out there (step aside, Mega Man 2‘s Normal Mode). It’s obviously not meant for seasoned players. Recovery items are laughably plentiful, enemies go down fast, and attack patterns are far simpler. One of the biggest changes, are the floating platforms above many of the pits and spikes. These platforms are all bright red and stand out in what I can only assume is an intentional way for the developer to secretly make fun of you.

Like Proto Man, Hard Mode is also no longer paid DLC. Unlike Proto Man, you’ll have to complete the game first to unlock it. Hard Mode has a lot of changes. Enemies are much faster, more plentiful, and utterly merciless. There are even some minor platforming tweaks. What I found most interesting, is that the robot masters have completely new attacks in addition to their old ones. The first time Pump Man grabbed his head and threw it at me I was shocked. I had no idea there would be sprites you’d only see in Hard Mode.

Mega Man 10 is an easy recommendation to fans of the 2D platformer genre, assuming they aren’t completely burnt out on the series. The superb level design with branching paths and unique features doesn’t disappoint. The music is as good as ever, and with Time Attack, Challenge Mode, and multiple characters and difficulty settings, there’s plenty of reason to keep playing.

This review is based on a the WiiWare version of Mega Man 10, purchased by the reviewer.

"Click for Maximum Awesome"

On a very special fiftieth episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we are joined by two amazing guests.

Returning for the second time is “Number One Super-Fan”, Russ Walsh, to tell us all about Cave Story, probably. We also have the first appearance of Adam “Heat Man” Anania from The Mega Man Network. He is here to tell us all about the site, CES, and Mega Man 10.

In our segment on the games we have been playing lately, we discuss The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, Uncharted 2, Tekken 6, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Dark Void and more. We also talk a bunch about the news of the week, including the possibility of Capcom developed Tatsunoko games and rumors of the new Zelda possibly being a Majora’s Mask sequel.

So grab your party hat with a giant “50″ emblazoned in comic sans, light some candles so that you can immediately blow them out, and join us for our fiftieth episode fifthstravaganza!

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Show Links:

Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

The Mega Man Network

"WingDamage thanks you in advance!"

As loyal readers and listeners of our podcast are all well aware, Mega Man Legends and Mega Man Legends 2 are both highly regarded here on WingDamage. The second game left on a cliff hanger. I mean, come on! We don’t just WANT a third game, we NEED a third game.

Fortunately, we have a new outlet for informing Capcom about our Mega Man Legends 3 demands. Capcom’s cleverly titled community site, Capcom Unity, has a new interactive feature currently in Beta appropriately named “The Suggestion Box“. Here Unity members can submit and vote on ideas for games and what not.

Here’s why you should care:

“…your top overall suggestions will be reviewed at our internal meetings. That means every 2 weeks, everybody that matters here is going to get an earful about what’s important to you.”

That’s right! Capcom is actually going to look at the stream of votes for Mega Man Legends 3 you provide in an official meeting. Then in two more weeks, they’ll look at it again. At some point, they might actually decide it would be profitable enough to go through with it!

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Login to Capcom Unity or register an account.
2. Go to the Suggestion Box (more info in this post).
3. Look for the Mega Man Legends 3 suggestion that is closest to the top ranking. Creating a new one won’t help anybody. It will only split the votes!
4. Vote that sucker up!
5. Pat yourself on the back for doing the world of gaming a huge favor.

In the ever growing video game remix scene, one game’s soundtrack remains virtually untouched. Even Overclocked ReMix, the biggest vg remix community on the internet, doesn’t have a single arrangement from the highly underrated soundtrack of Mega Man Battle Network.

The Mega Man Network is making a point to change that. For the first time ever, TMMN is banding together to create an original remix album for the fans. The album will be completely free to download.

Right now, you can visit the project’s homepage and listen to three different samples, including one from yours truly. You can also check out info about all the people involved and keep up to date on the news page. And don’t forget to show your support on TMMN.

"Last Chance to Win Some PAX Swag!"

This is your last chance to win some sweet exclusive PAX Swag in our PAX Pack Giveaway #4! This pack includes such awesome stuff as the rare Servbot Keychain from Capcom and a Steam download code for Knights of the Old Republic.

So we thought, why not combine the two? To enter, just put in the comments below who would win; Mega Man or Darth Malak? Bonus points if you can say how they would win.

See after the break for a full list of prizes and also our contest rules.

PAX Prize Pack #3 Includes:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Steam Download Code)
Servbot Keychain
Aeria Games Power Collection (6 games)
Magic the Gathering: Alara Reborn Booster Pack
Time Crisis 4 Shirt (XL)
Blabbelon Shirt (L)
Splosion Man Poster
Several Pins (PAX ‘09, OnLive, Sabatour)
The Beatles Rockband Stickers
PB Winterbottom Stickers
Beatorator Sticker
Intel Shirt (L)
Katamari Card
League of Legends Sticker
League of Legends PAX Skin
Fauna Sphere Mousepad
Assassins Creed II Sticker
Splinter Cell Sticker
Conan Scratch Card
Dante’s Inferno Comic
Dofus Beta Code
Dungeon Fighter Online Beta Code

Contest Rules:

1. Leave a comment below answering the question “Who would win in a fight; Mega Man or Darth Malak?”
2. Limit one entry per person
3. All entries must be made by legal U.S. residents
4. Winner will be selected randomly
5. Your entry must be received no later than 7pm Pacific, Friday October 23rd, 2009