AndrewTS

10 lbs.: Wario Ware makes him an eeeevil programmer, in Mario & Wario he's the bad guy, and I assume he's the main baddie in Wario's Woods. But not in another platform game, AFAIK.

There is. Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania and Contra for PC. It's a bare-bones compilation of the NES games, and CV2's passwords are all different in that version (but some translation errors were fixed up). Konami hasn't really done a good job of compilations. Aside from that and some GBA compilations of old arcade titles, that's it really. If they did a spiffed up console version, with artwork, Haunted Castle, Rondo of Blood with an option for Arranged Mode, the SNES Drac X and SCV4, and Bloodlines, I'd be willing to pay $50. I wish if such a compilation was done that they'd squeeze in Legacy of Darkness. It got such a bad rap because of the overblown backlash on CV64 that hardly anyone ever gave it a chance. Iga has taken it upon himself to strike them from canon and doesn't think much of them. Despite that, it's still better in many ways than his last 3D CV and beats the utter trash that was Nanobreaker. Iga's talented, but he's a sexist, egotistical moron at times. Source? It would be welcome, though. Harmony had very low production. Getting a used copy even without box/manual can cost you 30-35 bucks, and EB/Gamestop don't cut you any breaks on it. Aria of Sorrow seems to have much higher production, but Aria's also been bootlegged out the arse. However, unlike most illegitimate copies of GBA games, the Aria that I had ended up with saves perfectly. The GBA is extremely popular to pirate games for these days, and the knockoffs are admittedly quite well done. The super-shiny stickers, darker carts and differently shaped logos sticking out help you denote the phonies, but generally they're not as good at bootlegging the boxes and instructions. The Puzzle Fighter bootleg I ended up with looked horrific, and the save feature didn't work. Some of Dawn's souls are better and more useful than the norm. The Killer Clown soul kicks ass--you launch an ultra-quick playing card that does great damage. Axe Armor is the traditional angled ax attack. The Sniper is slow but does great damage. The familiars aren't as useful as they were in SotN, or even the Ice Card/Cross combo in Harmony. Maybe that will change if I stock up on more souls of that type. Soul abilities get stronger if you collect more souls. Plus, you can use some soul types to fuse to old weapons and make them stronger. I've been doing that a lot, since Hammer's a greedy bastard.

Bumping this thread because I own Dawn of Sorrow, Curse of Darkness is supposedly getting a playable Jampack demo to be released soon, and darnit, we need some conversation that isn't sports-related or limited to the comments folder. Anyway, not sure if I'd call Dawn as good as SotN yet, but it's darn close, and more challenging, fun, and more pleasing to the eyes and ears than Aria. Unfortunately, there are fewer hidden rooms (tons of times I've taken a swipe at a wall that seemed to scream "secret room," but came up with nothing). The graphics are fantastic, with tons of tiny little details in the animation (multiple levels a parallax, the snow falling, including piles of snow on a van that--when you jump on it, the weight pushes the van down and snow falls off the tope of the van, Soma's hair and amulet, the Witch's "jiggling," a few huge bosses so far), and some areas that even put SotN to shame (the underground cavern looks amazing, better than similar areas in the DKCs by far). The music is incredible as well, on par sometimes with SoTN's despite being in a tiny cartridge. There's no extended speech, unfortunately. I've still got a long way to go, haven't even fought the undead T-Rex yet. Gameplay is pretty much the same as Aria of Sorrow but with new features. The Doppelganger soul lets you swap between two sets of souls and equipment with X. You get a "super" attack that varies by weapon with A. Double jump is in, but second jump is a front flip. The touch screen's features aren't used immensely--you can bust ice blocks it, sic familiars on enemies you touch, etc. Of course, the main feature is the Magic Seal system. The major bosses are provided with unlimited power, so to defeat them you need to weaken them and then use the magic seals. Stronger enemies need stronger seals, and you can't open the boss room without the appropriate seal (which unfortunately makes the game's nonlinearity take a hit by quite a bit). If you fail, the enemy revives and you have to knock its health down again. So far I've been able to do a six-point seal without much difficulty using just my finger. It doesn't have to have perfectly straight lines to take, but you can't take your finger off the screen, you have to hit all the points in the right order, and you have to do it fairly quickly. Anyway, I've been really engrossed in this game and I can't really recommend it highly enough if you like the recent games. It smokes Harmony and Aria by far, IMO. I can't wait to unlock the extra mode. Although the usual "short and easy" complaint could still be leveled at it, I've actually died 3-4 times, something that rarely occured in the others games.

Luigi was better than Mario for most levels in Mario World Advance (they gave him the higher flutter jump from SMB2 in the Advance version). Although levels with spikes on the ceilings, etc. often were a must for Mario. Mario was totally average in everything in Mario 2. Peach could float. Luigi had the higher/flutter jump. Toad...yah, could pull up things faster. I hope the improvements on Mario 64 DS is made available on Revolution. I'd love to try the other characters featured, but I'm not about to risk 25 bucks + to find out how poorly the controls work on a game made for analog control.

Ahahaha, wow. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Most of the writing on 1up still sucks, except for Parish's. What moronic editor let "Midol-depraved" through? It's wrong on so many levels. I guess it's like such-and-such year being a banner year for women in politics if two new congresspersons are women. It's all relative. I guess the umbrella will still provide a similar function to the floating feature in Mario 2. The rumored storyline is that she's got to rescue Mario...which if it's true, I expect it to be a dream like Mario 2.

Wow, they really went ahead with it. Ghey.

"JR, you don't fit in." *writes a letter to him*

The question is what she's smoking. Seriously though, yeah she does.

"Firing your audience" is marketing lingo for sacrificing some of your loyal fanbase in exchange for bold new marketing moves that will alienate that audience, but bring in more people or more desirable demographics. Which is really ****ing funny in this context.

Super Princess Peach preview: http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3144554&did=1 Hm, so she's prone to emotional outbursts. Yeah, nothing remotely sexist about that. Looks cool and creative, somewhat like a Pac Man 2 with direct control over the protagonist.

From 1up:

"The guy just knows what he's talking about. Whether he likes it or not, he's always there with the reasons he came to that conclusion" And plenty of times those reasons are total BS.

No Sega CD anymore, but it was fun. The Cage match itself rocked for a game at the time, although the game itself was pretty much Royal Rumble with a gignormous roster. Howard Finkel's intros and Superstar Voice Overs (which THQ acts like was a new feature in SvR) were very cool at the time.

WWF Raw I'd play regularly for YEARS after release. Up to 4 Players Tons of gameplay modes that were unmatched in the US until the n64 games (Brawls or pinfall, survivor series tags, tornado tags, tag team tournament--which, you know, wrestling games don't feel are very important now since they don't friggin bother). Royal Rumble mode + players equals a rollicking good time. Laugh at your buddy Joe after he's dumped over the top rope by 123 Kid! The attributes and the ability to change them (Yoko the Cruiser!) Mostly unique move sets, even if some of them were totally wrong. The bucket and chair + two different attacks with them. Simple, button-mashing fun gameplay The manuals were great, filled with goofy bios. The computer had no escape for the corner ram/9 punch combo. You could do it over and over and over and over again as a great stress reliever. Then launch the poor sap out of the ring, bash a chair over his head, choke him, beat the crap out of the referee, then sit on his chest to pin him. 32X version: KWANG!

raza: how's the public transport in Orlando?

The vacation picture I believe was originally on a postcard, then later slapped in a number of artbooks. The style looks different but it is official. It's rare to see video game characters, especially females, with tanlines. I guess growing up in Britain left Cammy pretty susceptible to tanning (and that was before sprayons got big). Bison parachuting in trunks is perhaps the best part. And even there Ryu is all by himself. Chun Li looks a bit too muscular, though.

Agreed. Never underestimate what powerful corporations can do when oppressed by idiotic politicians. I now am the proud owner of an Electric Blue DS and am playing Dawn of Sorrow.

The presence of KoCII seems to indicate you should know better.

Well, it's not like it's being imposed in a sane state or anything, but it is still disconcerting.

The Governator with another shitty new decision, but the irony in this situation gives me a headache... http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3144497 What an icehole.

D/L PLZ

Cool, thanks. I'll still get everything I can the "fair" way, but when a friend's over I'll pull out the code for art purposes.

I would have guessed that was a Pico game, but you could be right. ABOBO: Good point, but Sonic 2 was packed into tons of systems too. Have you ever been to a Gamestop/EB and not seen about 4-5 of those?

Good point...four regular platformers, Spinball, 3D Blast, all of those Game Gear games... vs. SMW 1 and 2, RPG and Kart? Although the GB Marios kind of even it out, depending on whether you count Wario Land 1. There's Tetris and Dr. Mario, kind of cancelled out by Dr. R's Mean Bean Machine. All Stars which is kind of cancelled out by Sonic classics...but we know who sold more systems in that case. Do we include Mario Paint? Knuckles' crappy 32x game which is inconsequential? The Yoshi games (not counting YI which was SMW2)?

In the US, Sega had more market share late midway in the 16-bit wars, which I *think* gave them the edge worldwide. I think we're talking around 94. It's tough to really measure. Genesis was out sooner and sold more, but when it was the actual SNES vs. Genesis years, the SNES slightly outsold it, most of the "lead" coming up in the final 2 years.