I am Samuel, and I need to put an end to a debate that has bothered me since the last time we spoke on team calls. Tim is saying that Marvel vs Capcom games are better now due to their “improved balance” and “more accessible controls”. Tim, you are missing the whole point. While the original Marvel vs Capcom may be the core of the franchise, it is also the most direct example of how…
Why the Best Console of its Generation Lost To Market Momentum I own a pub in Bristol with a back room full of arcade cabinets and old school home systems. I operate on original hardware. I know the difference between original arcade cabinets and emulation. I know what it means to keep vintage hardware alive. Sega’s Dreamcast blows my mind. I get what Sega was going for: technical excellence, architectural mastery. Dreamcast was easily the…
Release Date: December 17, 1988 (Japan) | Developer: Square | Platform: Famicom / NES (8-bit cartridge) | ROM Size: ~512 KiB ROM; password-based save | Playtime: Main story 25–35 hours, Main + extras ~40 hours, Completionist 50+ hours | Sales: 500K–700K (Japan), 1M+ worldwide (original + ports) | Critical Reception: 35/40 (Famitsu/Famicom Tsūshin, 1988), 75–80/100 (Modern retrospectives), 85/100 (PSP/Pixel Remaster with QoL updates) When most people talk about console wars, I get … historical. They’re…
There's something unsettling about firing up Shadow Man on the N64 after twenty-odd years. I mean, you forget how genuinely disturbing some games were back then—not in that try-hard, gore-for-shock-value way modern horror does, but in a proper, creeping dread sort of way that made you glance over your shoulder even though you knew it was just pixels on a screen.I picked up my copy from Electronics Boutique sometime in late '99, I think. The…
You know what? I've been thinking about that dusty corner of my game collection again. There's this one cart that sits between my beloved Ocarina of Time and the slightly warped copy of GoldenEye—Quest 64. Funny thing is, most people either don't remember it at all or they remember it as "that weird RPG that wasn't very good." But here's the thing… they're wrong.I picked up Quest 64 in the summer of '98, right after…
Picture this: I'm rifling through a car boot sale last autumn, knee-deep in someone's gaming collection, when I spot it—a pristine Mega Drive 2 sitting in a cardboard box like it's been waiting for me specifically. The seller wanted fifteen quid for it, which felt like highway robbery until I plugged it in at home and remembered why Sega's second swing at their 16-bit masterpiece was, in many ways, better than the original.The Genesis 2—or…