The Checkpoint - 

Ok thought I would set myself an interesting little challenge. I am going to play 150 SNES games in 150 days, 1 a day. Now I am not going to try and complete them all but I am going to try and play them at least enough to say a little something, maybe give a quick review.  Now I intend to do all of this on a real snes using real carts. I probably own about 130 so will have to pick a few up along the way.  

ADDED  I actually failed the challange. I got a new job and found it hard to find time for this, I then lost my new job because while I was still in my trial period they decided to make cutbacks.. after this I sat around feeling sorry for myself and then I have continued playing SNES games but at a slower pace.

I have started today by Playing Hook

Hook the game was made for the Snes by Sony Imagesoft (Latter to be known as Sony Computer Entertainment). They took the basic plot of the film, and then went off in their own direction. Hook the video game only shares a very basic level of plot with Hook the movie

Basically Peter Pan grew up had kids and became a chubby business man forgetting all about neverland. Captain Hook kidnaps Peter's two children, Maggie and Jack, and holds them hostage. So Tink the fairy fetches Pan and carries him to neverland. Now in the film there is a whole big long thing of Peter becoming the pan again but in the game tink sprinkles him with fairy dust and bang he is in green tights ready to go. The first level is basically Pan proving he is the Pan to the lostboys by kicking there ass and from there on in he is kicking the arse of anything he can reach while making tricky jumps and avoiding enemies through level after level.



The game is basically your standard 2D platform game but it’s a good one not one of those hastily thrown together cash in’s which is surprising really with it being a movie tie in. The levels are challenging and well designed. The graphics although not stunning suit the game and are filled with nice little touches Peters hair and clothes blowing in the wind being one example, the character of Pan kind of does look like a cartoon  Robin Williams even though they apparently didn’t have the rights to peoples likenesses everyone kind of looks like a simple anime inspired version of their real life counterpart.



The film had a John Williams' orchestral soundtrack and most of this seems to have been converted into digitized 16bit versions which really adds to the feeling that this is a quality production. I won’t say that Hook is perfect though, it has its issue there are some isues with its difficulty balance. As a game that was intended for kids it is just to hard, I remember never seeing very much of this game as a child, as an adult though this is no real problem I have given this game about 2 hours today and I am just a little bit away from the end, really it is a short game which is hiding the issue of its length behind a difficulty wall which would obscure this from its original customer base. I wonder how many kids threw there pads in anger and declared that this game sucked just because it was a touch to difficult, still there parents would have been annoyed if there kids had managed to finish it in 2 hours.

I guess I would give it a 7 out of 10 …. I like it a lot but I don’t think its an all time classic.

I brought this game of a market, just the cart itself, I can’t remember the price but I know it was somewhere between 50pence and £3 now days having a quick look the cart seems to be going for anything from £15 to £25…. If your in to chasing retro games I would say its worth £15 but I personally wouldn’t go spending £25 on it unless it was boxed and in good condition.

Eurogamer got the scoop and I am impressed: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-26-nx-is-a-portable-console-with-detachable-controllers


(Note this image is just representative of the final product)

A portable tabled with detachable controllers for multiplayer and home gaming because you can hook it up to your TV via a base station. Powered by an Nvidia Tegra chip and some other bells and whistles. So it looks like the longterm plan of merging Nintendo's portable and home console hardware is paying off to produce this new machine. 

Personally I am very excited because this is Nintendo playing to their strengths rather than playing catch up with Microsoft and Sony. Earlier rumours had it being heavily connected to mobile phones via bluetooth too so there is potential to use people's smartphones to handle things like online gaming on the go and that sort of thing which is cool. 

Most importantly though because it is unified hardware that means that there will indeed be a steady stream of games for this thing because devs both internally and externally will no longer have to choose between making a title for 3DS or the Wii U. 

They are meant to be doing the big unveiling in September but for now I am super excited to see what this device is capable of, what sort of connectivity it will have and what games aside from Zelda it will have on it at launch.

£18 all complete with manuals...

Kings field for the PS1 is by from software... never seen it in my life before but they've made some interesting things so I thought why not give it a bash

14/08/2014   The Walking Dead – Season 2: Episode 4 PS3

Finished it last night while I could not sleep... I quiet enjoyed it but have to admit this season doesn't seem to be as Epic and doesn't seem to be moving towards something quiet as incredible as the last one.... I may eat my words when ep 5 comes out but I don't think so.

Yes yes and more yes.