Vampire Variations reinvents the soundtrack of the NES classic while taking a few additional elements from throughout the series. Listen to only half the album and you’ll get the wrong ending! Divided into two distinct musical acts, the album covers everything from “Rock and Orchestral to Jazz and Electronic”.

But don’t worry. Unlike Dracula’s castle, you won’t have to do anything fancy to unlock the inverted second act of this album. Just grab a whip and adventure into the album’s official site. Of course, if you’re too scared to walk in blind (and who can blame you?), you can prepare yourself with the teaser trailer below.

Superlatives are interesting things. Even though most reduce down to simply “better” or “best”, countless hundreds have become mainstays of the English lexicon. Just pick up any thesaurus and take a look. Seriously, try it. Oh, and when you’re done, look up the word “lexicon”. You know what it means? Thesaurus. I know, right? It’s all so meta. So meta in fact, it’s beyond meta. Fun fact: Meta comes from a Greek root meaning “beyond”. What does all this have to do with the Super Nintendo you ask? You’ve got some nerve mister.

One day, way back in the summer of 1986, my friend Franklin called me and said he had just got something called a “Nine Ten Doetainment Sister” for his birthday and that he wanted me to come over and “play it”. I had no idea what he was talking about. I assumed Franklin was high (again) and was seeing ‘skin spiders’ (again). But you know Franklin, what a nut. Anyway, I didn’t really have any friends and I was intrigued at this whole ‘Doetainment Sisters’ idea. So over I went. Once there, I discovered two things: 1) Franklins’ parents had actually got him a “Nintendo Entertainment System” for his birthday and, 2) Franklin wasn’t high at all. He was drunk. Very, very drunk. Seriously kids, stay in school.

That summer Franklin and I played his NES (a term I just invented just now) until school started. I remember it well. There were so many games. My favorite? It was a tie. Between all of them. I found it to be an amazing toy game system. It was better than an Odyssey, taped to the back of a ColecoVision, stapled to an Atari 2600. But as often happens, time passed and Franklin and his NES (mostly the latter) grew apart. Little did I know at the time, but the best was yet to come.

Flash forward to 1991. Now I was eighteen and out on my own. I had my own apartment, my own car, and climbing the corporate ladder at OfficeMax (and by ‘corporate ladder’ I mean actual ladders…usually carrying boxes of 3-ring binders or Sharpies). I was all grown up and eager to assert my newly found adulthood. So I did what any mature, responsible adult would do: I headed down to Toys “R” Us and bought my very own Nintendo.

"Super-King of Prefixes"

I was surprised to find the Nintendo Entertainment System had been recently usurped as the Fresh Prince of game systems. It was now all about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (see, I told you that first paragraph would be relevant eventually). I decided to call mine the ‘SNES’ (a term I invented, by the way). All the kids were saying it was more dope, more fresh, and at least 50% more other 90’s slang words than its predecessor. So I spent my Officemax money and bought one. It came with a similarly superlative-ized game called ‘Super Mario World’. In fact, as I browsed through the other available games, I found quite a few called ‘Super (something)’. Apparently everyone had elected ‘super’ as the new king of prefixes. It had become a veritable ‘Super Prefix’ (side note: I played Super King of Prefixes and it sucked). Being the counter-culture, iconoclast, hipster I was, I deliberately looked for a game without any nominal superness. I came across one called “Populous” and it looked interesting. It was a game where you basically played a god. I found that it was more fun than Super Mario World and way more fun than climbing ladders at work. Not to get into too many details, but suffice to say an inordinate amount of ‘sick’ was ‘called in’ during those first few weeks.

During those days of marathon Populous-playing sessions, my friends (of which I had none) would watch me play and say things like ‘Can we play Mario or something?’ and ‘Why are all your friends imaginary?’ (they would also tell me to burn things occasionally). FOOLS! They knew not of what they spoke. This was no mere ‘Nintendo’. This was the ‘Super Nintendo’. The Nintendo to end all Nintendo’s. The controller alone blew my mind. This one had eight buttons. Eight. And two of those buttons? That’s right — shoulder buttons (later, I discovered they existed but for one reason: to make high-speed turns in F-Zero…but that’s a story for another day). And the SNES provided such sublime gameplay. Case in point: at the end of every level, the Populous guy (who kinda looked like Skeletor) would say ‘Well done, mortal.’. It would actually say it…out loud. It was surely the best game system that would ever exist, ever.

"Well done, He-Man... er Mortal."

But as Yoda said, “Always in motion is the future.” It’s been twenty years and the world is much different now. Phrases like “I have a VCR” have now been replaced with “I have a Blu-ray player and it can’t record anything”. Shows like “In Living Color” or “The Arsenio Hall Show” have been replaced with lots of shows without black people in them. What I called the “Walkman” is now called, well it’s still called the Walkman. But it’s a lot different now. Listen, the point is, it’s been twenty years since those heady days of 1991. Sure, some things are better. I mean in 1991 the US was only engaged in one war and now we have three at once. You can use peanut butter to kill quite a few elementary school kids. And let’s not forget about Fox News. But the greatest tragedy of all these advancements is how Nintendo no longer uses superlatives when naming their systems. It’s really quite an atrocity.

The latest iteration of the veritable Nintendo Entertainment System, the ‘Wii’, is very popular among today’s young people. One would think that naming a game system after a urine euphemism would be a bad idea. But it seems anything goes with kids today. I’m not surprised. Just look at them. With their rap singing and Macpods. Honestly. And for the love of god, will you please pull up your freaking pants?! Don’t even get me started on what passes for Voltron these days. Plastic, Mattel? Plastic?!

"We're supposed to fly in what?"

But I digress.

There are so many systems today. I don’t know, I guess they are all pretty cool. And I admit I left my SNES behind long ago (I think I sold it for rent money). But despite all the advancements in gaming technology, it’s still the Super Nintendo that holds the fairy bottle to my heart containers.

And that, true believer, is the greatest superlative of them all.

Check out more from Mike over on his blog.

It is a hard thing for me to admit, but the original Metroid is a tough game to go back to. While the graphics and controls hold up well, its insane difficulty and incredibly tedious health replenishment make it a frustrating ride. But I’m not here to focus on the few bad things. I want to talk about the things it did amazingly right.

The 8-bit era was a time when many developers were unsure how to make games for the home market. Looking through the NES library, you’ll find a huge selection of the games, particularly the early ones, are ports of arcade classics. The quarter munching arcade mentality was so ingrained in developers that even some of the best entries on the NES still have that feeling that they are after your allowance.

Let’s look at what set Metroid apart from the pack.

A Connected World

Many gamers enjoy that sense of being transported to another place and time. An entire different reality through the medium of gaming. I know as a kid that grew up with a lot of health problems, this was a huge draw for me. I couldn’t go running around outside without being sternly warned not to “overdo it”, but I could run around Zebes blasting the crap out of some alien monsters to my hearts content.

The gaming landscape was dominated by level based games. Most followed the familiar Super Mario Bros. progression of a few levels in a themed world, then a boss, followed by a new set of themed levels. Metroid did one better by making a cohesive world.

"This is the whole map. Click to see it in detail."

When you start, Samus is dropped in the middle left of the map. Following the instincts you’ve gained from other games of the era and going from left to right will barely get you anywhere in Metroid. The first move that actually helps you make any kind of real progress is moving to the left. Even this minor detail is a big change from the norms of the time. It was a smart move on the part of the game’s developers, since it really makes you realize that this is a game that is going to force you to think about things a little differently.

If you click the map linked above and take a look at the starting location, it is very interesting to note that Mother Brain is almost directly on top of you right from the outset, unbeknownst to Samus (or you, the player). Even if you knew exactly where Mother Brain was, you have no way to get into her lair without first defeating her minibosses. This requires a lot of exploration before it can be accomplished.

Just getting from one side of the room to another is not going to be enough. Metroid’s layout forces you to venture forth in every direction. It requires you to scour all corners of Zebes for power-ups and the hidden lairs of Kraid, Ridley and finally, Mother Brain.

A Sense of Progression

Character progression was still a rare thing. RPG’s gave you stat bonuses from fighting monsters and new loot. Zelda had its set of items and hearts you could collect. But Samus’s new power-ups really made you feel empowered. You start with almost no health and a gun that only shoots about two feet in front of your face. Even the most basic of enemies could kill you in just a few hits.

"Giant birds make the best boots."

Your exploits lead you to a gun that can fire the entire screen. The ability to jump twice as high. Missiles used for previously locked doors. Even an ice beam that then allowed you to freeze enemies and use them as platforms to reach new areas.

By the end of Metroid, you feel like a badass. You are still a badass that can get said ass handed to them if you stop paying attention to what you are doing, but still.

All About the Atmosphere

Playing right into what was previously said about Zebes being one connected map is its cohesive atmosphere. You are utterly alone. The soundtrack plays well into this with its creepy ambiance. The creatures are strange and the few that are recognizable (like the bee creatures) are huge, ugly and twisted versions of the familiar. The titular Metroids only appear at the end of the game, and are like nothing you will have encountered before. They don’t follow a pattern, they are out for blood and it’s yours they are after.

The giant Chozo statues that hold the power-ups meant for Samus further play into the alien atmosphere. Clearly they are there to help Samus, but who built them and why? Many of these question were answered in subsequent entries in the series, but back then nothing in-game explained any of it.

Throughout the game, the background is a very stark black. This further plays into the feelings of isolation, but it also helps tie the different areas together. You don’t suddenly get to a part with a radically different feel. Even though the other aspects of an area may shift, you always have the feeling of being in the same big, lonely, monster-filled cavern.

So it had a few flaws. The important thing is Nintendo tried to do something interesting and different. They even made their main character female, something that is sadly still rare in the gaming landscape today. All the elements came together to make something that blew my then 7 year old mind.

Amazingly, Metroid: Zero Mission was able to take that original game, iron out the kinks and make it playable for a modern audience. I highly recommend tracking it down and playing that version instead.

“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.

“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.

By 1991, games on the NES were already starting to be overlooked. The onset of fancy new 16-bit game consoles like the Sega Genesis stole a lot of their thunder. Heck, the Super NES launch was right around the corner!

Even games that were critically successful would often fall to the wayside. Sadly, Metal Storm suffered this fate. It didn’t help that it was also published by Irem, the people that brought us Deadly Towers, the game popular satirist Seanbaby refers to as “the worst Nintendo Game of all time”.

The good news is Metal Storm is no Deadly Towers. It’s an action platformer where you control a mech that must navigate some very tricky levels.

On the surface, Metal Storm seems like your average NES platformer/shooter. You are a robot, you shoot the other robots before they shoot you. But their is a very clever mechanic in the mix that really adds to the gameplay: you can control the gravity.

Simply by jumping and hitting A and either up or down, you can switch between walking on either the top or bottom of the screen.

"Crazy Upside Down Gravity"

It not only changes your own orientation, but that of many of the enemies in the game. There are also some levels where the gravity will also effects certain doorways. It takes some quick reflexes to properly use the mechanic, and is completely necessary to your successful progression through the game.

Stages are broken up into two sections and a boss battle. I was surprised to find that when I had to continue (which was a lot), I started at the stage I left off on rather than the first one of the set. Boss battles, however, do start at the level immediately before them if you have to continue. Since there is no limit to the number of times you can continue (and you restart play extremely quickly), I found my constant deaths less frustrating than I would have if there were an arbitrary limit of continues, or forced you back to the beginning of the set of levels, etc.

The real key to the game is memorization. You die in one hit (except for when you get a second hit from power ups) and while most of the stages are pretty tough, they are also fairly short. It takes more platforming than shooting skills to make your way through Metal Storm.

Why did I pick this game?

This is another game I picked up while hanging out with Dave at his place of employment, purely based on cover art. We were looking for something to do when the store was slow and he said, “You should play something for a FOG review.”

We initially threw in Judge Dread for the SNES, but it was a little too terrible to stick with for more than a few minutes. I noticed Metal Storm sitting on the back shelf, a recent enough trade-in that it didn’t even have a price tag. The giant mech on the cover made me curious as to what kind of game it would be.

How does it hold up with time?

I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun Metal Storm is. Indie darlings of today like Super Meat Boy, I Wanna Be the Guy, and VVVVVV owe their existence to games of yore like Metal Storm. The fast paced action, instant deaths, and super quick retry times make it just as accessible as any of these newer games in the genre.

In fact, if you like those games at all, you should go back and give Metal Storm a try. I think you will be as pleasantly surprised with the game as I was. It even has a rocking soundtrack to compliment the package.

Looking for some dope rhymes and phat beats laid over the top of classic NES and SNES themes? Look no further, for Random (aka Mega Ran) and K-Murdock have been working on just that! The result of their efforts, Forever Famicom, is dropping to the public on June 1st.

Can’t wait a week? You’re in luck. The album is being released early in digital form to members of the Mega Ran message board who pre-order the album. You can join up and place your order here.

On Random’s official site, you can check out preview clips of all 14 tracks. The music samples lots of memorable tunes from games such as Earthbound, Star Fox, Little Nemo, Ducktales, and much more. If you enjoy nerdcore and videogame music, don’t miss it. And be sure to check out the full version of Dream Master (Little Nemo) embedded after the break.

“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.

BurgerTime is the kind of game that sounds ridiculous on paper, looks ridiculous on your screen, but is somehow completely addictive.

In an era where most games involved shooting aliens or ripping off Pac-Man, BurgerTime is about Hamburger construction.

You play as chef Peter Pepper. You are trying to construct a delicious burger by running over the top of the various ingredients (bun, meat patty, tomato, etc.) which are placed on platforms. Running over each ingredient causes it to fall down one level, if it lands on top of another ingredient that one falls one level. Your goal is to get on all the ingredients on top of the bun.

Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg pursue you and try to stop you from assembling your burger. You can stun them with a blast of pepper or kill them by either dropping the ingredients on their head or having them stand on an ingredient as the support is knocked out. You earn points for killing enemies. If you are trying for high scores, taking out multiple enemies out at once is key.

As you progress, each level becomes harder and harder as it becomes easier and easier for the enemies to trap you. Most gamers won’t make it past level 2.

Why did I choose this game?

I remember my cousin got this game for the NES and we spent hours battling for the top score. I have a lot of fond memories of dodging Mr. Pickle.

I also picked this game because there was a brief time where I had the top score for the year on Gametap (so what if it was right at the start of the year and my score was quickly obliterated, I was still #1.)

How does it hold up?

The concept is still fresh and weird. There is nothing like getting chased by Mr. Egg and Mr. Hot Dog to get your blood pumping.

The main issue with the game has always been the controls. In every single version from the arcade to NES to Gametap, the game doesn’t always recognize when I am hitting up on a ladder. This is a fairly big problem when 78% of the game is going up and down ladders. It can lead to some screaming and shouting when Mr. Hot Dog catches you because the game didn’t recognize that you were hitting up.

“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.

A lot of racing games came out for the NES, from Excitebike to Rad Racer and everything in-between. There was a surprisingly wide variety of them.

In 1988, Rare threw their hat into the racing ring (OK, that one got away from me) with R.C. Pro-Am, a racing game that revolved around remote controlled cars.

Pro-Am is the first racing game I ever played that incorporating drifting in the game mechanics. Its isometric view lent itself well to having your car spin to various angles when making your way around the game’s windy tracks. There are twelve different track layouts total, but they repeat indefinitely mixing up the oil slicks, water hazards, pop-up walls, weapon placement, and “zippers” (those things that magically make your car go faster).

There are two weapon types, and strangely enough only the player’s car can pick up and use them. Missiles shoot straight out from the front of your car, while bombs drop out the back and explode. If you successfully manage to hit another vehicle, it will be temporarily destroyed.

There is also a temporary shield that all cars can pick up. It makes your car flash, and if another car comes in contact, it will spin out. If a car that is spinning (either from touching a car with the shield or from an oil slick) hits the side of the track, it will temporarily be destroyed.

As you progress, you can pick up upgrades off the track in three different categories; Higher top speed, acceleration, and turning. These take the form of an engine, a turbo impeller, and a tire. While logic would state hitting these at top speed with your car while trying to race would make you crash out, this is an NES game. Instead, you get a short boost of speed and a permanently increased stat for that car.

The other upgrade mechanic is in the form of letters, one appearing per track, that spell NINTENDO. Once all of these have been collected, you and the A.I. cars will upgrade from the standard pick-up truck to the sports van, then to the race car. The race car looks exactly like the R.C. Car I had as a kid, making Pro-Am wiggle that much farther into my heart.

R.C. Pro-Am‘s winning conditions are probably the strangest part of the game. Rather than having all cars race to the finish, the race ends when one car crosses the finish line. As long as you are not in last place (out of four) when that happens, you get to continue on. In addition to this, you get three continues.

I found some interesting info on the game’s AI when researching more on Pro-Am. Within the first 24 tracks, the blue car is programmed to either accelerate or decelerate based on how well the player is doing. The green and yellow cars will stay at a constant speed that is just under the player’s max. However, using a lot of missiles and bombs can trigger the yellow car to hit his “go faster button”, making his max speed much faster than your own.

I’ve personally never made it this far, but if you can get up to track twenty-nine, the three computer cars will start the race off going the maximum, higher than you can ever go, top speed. This changes it from a race to a game of trying to shoot them all with missiles to keep up.

Why did I choose this game?

When Jeremy, my oldest brother, won the Metroid Art Contest in Nintendo Fun Club Magazine, he chose R.C. Pro-Am as one of the two games for his prize (the other was Super Mario Bros. 2).

We used to take turns trying to get as far as possible on our few continues. I remember it being one of the better racing games on the NES and having a lot of fun with it.

How does it hold up?

R.C. Pro-Am is not without its charm, but it is a hard one to go back to. The lack of music (other than a short ditty when you start the race) and constant “tire screeching” noise in the turns really starts to grate after a while.

AI, as mentioned above, is a little goofy and can start to get pretty frustrating in the later levels. While it is fun to throw it in and play a game or two, it isn’t one I could see putting a lot of time into these days.

"Actual Game Graphics (as seen by my memories)"

As the internet makes everyone’s voices heard more and more, whether it be through comment systems, forums, or social media sites, it’s interesting to see the different patterns that develop. One I’ve taken note of in the last couple of years is the inaccuracies of our memories. Yes, I say “our” because I’ve fallen into this same trap from time to time just like everyone has.

Most people have games they remember loving long ago, but haven’t played in years. It can be a sad truth to find out that games you use to love don’t stand the test of time, but it can also be fascinating to see just how different reality is from our aged memories.

This curiosity is one of the motivations behind our Friday Old Games series. Sometimes we battle against our own memories as I did when reviewing Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; a game my memories would have me believe is fantastic, but in reality is a pretty shoddy licensed game. Other times, we want to set the record straight on games like Goldeneye that have been put on a pedestal for merits that are no longer relevant today.

In many peoples’ experience (including my own), a lot can be attributed to finances. When you are a little kid with little to no source of income, you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to gaming. Even so much as renting a game can drain all the money you have. And when you’ve gone and spent all the money in your possession, it better be justified. While you might not feel it’s worth it to spend time on a poor quality game now, back then there was no turning back. You already spent all your money and now you’ll drain every ounce of fun the game has to offer, regardless of how much bad design it’s buried under.

Fortunately, there are a lot of great games that hold up really well. But in order to find out which ones truly stand the test of time, we can’t rely solely on memories.

I’ve heard many people complain about both the supposed increase of licensed games today and how they wish Nintendo would bring back their “Seal of Quality“. This is something that always gives me a bit of a chuckle as the first thing that enters my mind is Yo! Noid. Not only is it an NES platformer based on the mascot of a pizza chain, it’s also one of the many terrible games sporting Nintendo’s old “Seal of Quality”. The NES is a great system with many wonderful games. However, there are also plenty of licensed games and plenty of terrible games with a false assurance of quality printed on them.

One of the most common comments displaying memory failure I hear in this generation are regarding graphics. While some are intentional exaggerations, many people look at a game with graphics they don’t find satisfying and honestly believe they don’t look any better than that of the previous console generation. I’m not saying it’s impossible for that to be true, but more often than not it’s based on inaccurate memories.

To illustrate, I’ll relate a specific example in which I fell into this same trap. I once rented Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube. While I didn’t put a ton of time into it, I enjoyed its visual style. Four years later, the sequel released on the Wii. When I saw the trailers I thought to myself, “These graphics don’t look any better than the first game.” I honestly believed that until I then looked up screenshots of the original. Below is my memory’s lie, completely exposed.

"My memory would have me believe these look identical."

Unfortunately, it’s not just random people on the internet making these mistakes where few will read them. Even people from large media outlets let their memories get the best of them. A recent offense came in the form of Destructoid’s Final Fantasy XIII review with the quote, “…if this is the future of the franchise, that future is incredibly bleak indeed.” Like Final Fantasy XIII or not, the next inevitable non-online entry will most likely play nothing like it. Even if we just look at the last few games in the main series (IX, X, and XII), we can see just how incredibly different each game is, making “the future of the franchise” something you can’t effectively predict. But alas, the reviewer’s memory betrayed him.

While some may have better memories than others, we all make mistakes. The next time you’re in a discussion or even writing on your own blog about something from an old memory, take a step back. Think for a second on the subject. Ask yourself, “Are things really the way I remember them?” And of course, when in doubt, do your research! Look at images of the old games that supposedly look just as good as this generation’s, research facts about gaming history, and re-play that game you use to love to see if it still holds up.

“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.

At some point when I was hanging out with Dave at his place of employment, Gamer Time, someone traded in a game for the NES that I had never heard of, Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos. Having grown up with the system, it always fascinates me to find games that I completely missed as a kid.

The cover art, posted as the header for this review, gave us a good laugh. It also had the box and manual intact, which pushed my decision to buy the game over the top.

In Solstice, you play as the wizard, Shadax. You are trying to rescue Princess Eleanor from the evil wizard, Morbius, who is hiding in the fortress of Kastlerock. You must search the maze that is Kastlerock for the six pieces of the Staff of Demnos in order to defeat Morbius. It may sound like I’m just making up goofy names off the top of my head, but I’m not.

"Shadax: The Pacifist Wizard"

The crux of the game is a puzzle platformer. It takes place from an isometric view, making the d-pad more accurate if you are holding the NES controller at a 45 degree angle. This takes some getting used to and lead to a lot of accidental deaths for me.

Shadax is armed only with a magical map and a variety of different potions. While his magic map keeps track of what rooms you’ve been in and your percentage of Kastlerock explored, it does not allow you to scroll through it freely. You can only ever see a small piece of it at a time. The only way to really track your progress through the maze is by drawing your own map as you go. If you are trying to finish Solstice without using a guide, then bust out the old graph-paper. Also, you are a crazy person.

There are four potions in your inventory. Blue potions make you invulnerable, purple ones destroys all enemies on the screen, yellow ones freezes time, and green ones reveals hidden objects. You start with two doses of each and can only hold up to four of each at a time. You really don’t end up needing them that often, though. However, they are your only “attacks”, as Shadax is some kind of crazy pacifist wizard and doesn’t believe in casting fireballs at the giant ogre about to smash his head in.

"Jump puzzles galore."

Other than his potions, the only moves Shadax can do are picking up objects and jumping. Each screen is self contained and picked up objects disappear once you move to a new screen. The coolest trick is the drop jump, in which you can pick up a box as you are jumping off of it, then drop it again to give yourself another platform to jump from. It is not only interesting, it is absolutely necessary to solve some of the game’s puzzles.

It is easy to get stuck in this game. There are a few things that you have to do in a particular order to progress. First of all, you start only able to jump one square of the grid high. If you don’t find the Magic Elfin Boots (best name ever) that give you the extra square height of jumping right away, it is very easy to get permanently stuck and have to start over.

"Magic Elfin Boots"

There are four keys and six pieces to the staff of Demnos hidden throughout the game. There are also a couple of plungers that set off bombs. All of these open up hidden doors or add extra boxes that are necessary to progress. Even after reading the game’s manual cover to cover, I had to go to a FAQ to find this out.

Why did I pick this game?

As mentioned above, I picked Solstice completely based on the box art. I had no prior experience with this one.

How does it hold up with time?

I really enjoyed the concept of Solstice. A puzzle/platformer involving an elaborate maze has a lot of appeal to my old school roots. Had I found it back in the day, it may be one that I look back on with fond memories. As it stands, there are a lot of problems. The lack of shadows make judging your jumps anywhere from difficult to nearly impossible depending on the room. Some puzzles require a level of precision that the game can’t quite pull off. It leads to a lot of unnecessary frustration.

It is really easy to get lost or stuck. A lot of trial and error is involved and the final puzzle took me forever due to a puzzle that involves split second timing. If you plan on playing through Solstice, don’t feel bad about needing to use a FAQ. It is pretty much impossible without either a FAQ or by making your own super detailed, hand-drawn maps (ah, memories).

Having a limited number of lives and continues is completely unnecessary for this game. The puzzles are hard enough without needing to add this extra layer of frustration. Fortunately, you can look up a 99 lives code. I highly recommend using it. Starting from scratch after having just spent a couple hours working your way through the maze will make you want to throw your cartridge out the window.

I would love to see someone do a modern take on this concept. The per room puzzles that lead to bigger, over-arcing puzzles is easily the best part of Solstice.