A Sprite

I LOVE IT! I'm not sure it's for everyone, but it made the game more intense, felt like more was at stake, even though I died sooner. Suddenly the very thing I complained about was adding to the suspense. Since there's a split opinion, is it possible to have both as game variations?

No, apologies, I meant I wanted the enemy to look smarter, in the sense of sharing the same game world as the player. An example would be Dig Dug, where enemies that move through the ground instead of using the tunnels suffer a speed penalty and are only visible by their eyes. The random movement itself is fine, it's the random element plus no interaction with the level itself that troubles me. I'm about to try your latest with the newer, more intelligent enemies...my chase suggestion was only for after the player passed the enemy...as if the guards slapped their heads and realized you were getting away...or were trained in the martial arts by Evil Otto. More of a reward for a player than a serious chase, unless you made a wrong turn or two. What you've done, and this fast, I'm in awe of. I never would have thought of it, and I'm curious how well it works... About to try now.

Let's get the negatives out of the way first. I felt like I was playing dodge the mouse cursor. There was no suspension of disbelief when the enemies floated over walls, and generally ping ponged back and forth at random like paranoid caffeine addicts. Some form of order is needed to maintain the narrative - I don't expect Metal Gear Solid, but I have to at least understand my enemy's motives. Even if those motives are KILL! or GUARD! Could there be a small speed penalty if the guardians attempt to sneak through the walls? A pause for thought before attempting it? The other trouble was that once I cleared the enemy, the rest of the level was dead time. What if the enemy gave chase to maintain the adrenaline to the next section of the map? Just for dramatic effect? Unfortunately, I can't add much beyond this, due to this disease I have where I suck at the game.

Blame the old school is new school mentality. The game perversely gets easier the further you go, due to the developer attempting to force players to play hardcore in the opening levels. It's a gimmick. A nasty one. Sometimes a little stagnation is good. Really, you're going to see that pattern of forced experimentation over and over. Avoid Dawn of Sorrow if you aren't good with the touchpad - you'll be unable to defeat a single boss until you learn to quickly copy other people's drawings without a mistake. Go straight to the GBA prequel instead. Minus the downgraded graphics and sound needed to fit into a 6-8 meg cart, it's the best balanced, most innovative of the series on handheld. Everything just feels right - the level of polish is like a master crafted watch.

Wrong sales model. Games outside of the mainstream require word of mouth to develop - the intelligent audiences they appeal to aren't going to impulse buy based on the hype. If word of mouth is good, the game will usually continue to sell steady units over a long period of time - look at Symphony of the Night for the PSOne.

Ultima IV - Imagine a game where being the good guy means choosing between honor and loyalty, mercy and justice, with genuine consequences...and this is only the opening personality quiz that serves as the character select. No other NES RPG of the era can match it's depth. It's just as possible to choose to murder the people you're sworn to protect, then steal their possessions... Anything goes, if you can deal with the consequences.

I've never seen a Jaguar outside of youtube, but I've played the entire library of Genesis/MegaDrive and SNES/SFC games. Games on the Jag that impressed me would include AvsP, Rayman, SkyHammer, and Battlesphere: Gold. Better to use Doom for a fair comparison. Wolfenstein 3D on the SNES is like the 2600 running Pac-Man. Doom SNES All ceiling and floor tiles removed. Level design simplified. Corners are cut as walls are taken away. Enemy sprites always face the player. The shotgun no longer fires a scattered shot. Color count is reduced, entire levels are repainted to avoid a tragedy. The game moves at a slower pace - you're limited to a realistic running speed; great for those prone to motion sickness. Enhanced soundtrack rounds out the list of changes - most feel this was a positive addition. It's probably the last version you'd choose overall, but it is still recognizable as Doom.

Tapper - Multiple levels and a bonus stage. In 2600 terms, that's like owning 4 games. Thrust+ Platinum - I might be able to beat the first area if I play nothing else... Sync - Because a little rhythm is good for the soul.

Like which ones? Burgetime and Bump N Jump are great examples of Intellivision arcade ports. For examples of the Intellivision's best graphics, google up Atlantis and Thunder Castle. Honorary mention to Masters of the Universe for sound.

I'd love to help, but I'm not even sure what you're asking. Right now, you've given us a blank slate to project our ideas into...for instance, my own first thought was that nobody's ever done a text based game where the idea is that if you eat your own flesh, you can regain health. Of course, you'd bleed, and that might make it hard to hide. And what would you eat? What can you afford to lose, just to keep playing the game? Where do you find the tools to do it? It's survival horror gameplay at it's most pure. But that's just off the top of my head. We could fill an entire thread with random ideas. I doubt it's the answer you sought. So please, tell us first what you have in mind so far for this project?

Hmmm. While the dual card system sounds interesting, I think the primitivity of the rest of the game would preclude me being interested in it. I'm not going to be able to look at it with the eyes of nostalgia like I can the original Castlevania, so I think it would be rather painful for me to watch and listen to. I guess if I somehow manage to beat the ones I have and Ecclesia, then I'll revisit the idea of completing the GBA set of titles. I went ahead and ordered Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness. I figure I can deal with generic 3D action game with a CV coat of paint. Share your thoughts after? I've never read a review of the 3D Castlevanias that didn't directly compare them to Devil May Cry or Symphony of the Night. Even their maker is a Devil May Cry fan. How would they have been received if released in a world where neither existed? Also, if you can look past the blinding amount of hype it's been buried under, give DMC a try afterwards. ( I've seen it sold for as little as $5. ) If it were repainted as a Castlevania game, where would it have ranked? Was it a wise decision to limit the camera in order to focus on the characters, enemies, and level design, or does it take away too much control from the player?

You've nailed most of them. I'd add only: a sense of style. Knowing your color wheel takes the presentation past polish and into a unique artform. Neutral grays are the worst offense. They're a dead space: They don't exist in nature, or blend well with other colors. They look like a Windows error message. Don't be afraid to use highlights - orange/gold/yellow seems to catch fire when placed near a vivid blue/violet combination or a dark green. Sure, it seems shallow, but it's the reason why Demon Attack on the 2600 still turns retro snobs into graphics whores over 25 years later. You've been given a big box of crayons - play with them a little.

That's Aria of Sorrow. Anyone who doesn't own it, go out and buy it now.

Circle of the Moon...it's aged. Badly. Animation is an 8 bit two frame strut to begin with, but add in limited music tracks over large sprawling maps, and it's like hitting a railroad spike into your ears during a seizure at a Hammer Horror movie all night marathon. Shortcuts are limited. Running isn't always an option...for instance, you must stop in your tracks and hold down the attack button every few seconds to attack poisonous snakes...it's worse than it sounds. And I still can't give it a bad review. The castle is easier to navigate than HoD, and the story, what little you'll find, is better written...but none of that matters. The real reason to play it now is the dual card system. None of the powers you unlock are spelled out, so you need to experiment just to find out what you've activated. It's rare to find a game that assumes you have a brain. I spent the first half hour playing calling the game every nasty name I could think of; most of them earned. By the time I neared the end, you would have had to pry that game out of my hands with a hacksaw. Is it for you? Who knows? If you look at it as what it could be, you'll walk away disappointed. But look at it as a newly discovered retro title, and you'll understand why it received a ridiculous amount of love when it was released.

Just curious - what kind of games would they be? How would you try to create intentional humor on a 2600?

Imagine Castlevania: Lament of innocence as a bonus minigame in Tekken. The action is solid, the enemies memorable...but every level is only constructed to serve as a level. There's no inspiration. The theme throughout is 'functional'. You will have fun. But you won't ever be surprised. Just like the developers themselves, you'll often find yourself simply going through the motions. The best 3d Castlevania game remains the original "Devil May Cry."

Apologies, if you were genuine. Welcome to the board...

Verily, thou doest asketh the questions that vex a man's soul. For I too, was ov'r one hundred posts in before I collected myself, scrolled down the page, and noticed a lack of roleplay. It wasn't until much later that I discovered one must ask to see the Politics forum...

NES can throw out 128 sprites with a midscreen reload. The 8 sprites per scanline limit means it'll crash a few users, but the system itself should be fine.

Looking at all the abuse here, and I wish I knew where it came from. This isn't the site I fell in love with. Clean Larry - Let me say that I think you're mad. I mostly mean that in a good way. I have no idea how you guys are turning a profit on any of this, and the amount of work it takes to translate any Asian script on a device with limited memory... ( For those of you who've never tried it, imagine taking a single character, and needing 5 words to accurately describe it's meaning in English. You need to have professional writing skills before you even think about pulling it off. Many mainstream translations settle for watching Babel Fish jump about outside it's tank and eventually die. ) Plus, you guys have enough self confidence to make it look easy. Perhaps too easy - I'd love to hear the story of how all this came to happen... But anyways, thanks for supporting the retro market. You make the world a little more complicated, a little less predictable. A little more insane. I wish more people did their work for the love of it.

Could the 7800 handle a current title? No, seriously. I'm looking at Geometry Wars: Galaxies (DS), numb thumb barely raised, waiting to unpause for another round...and all I can think about is sprite counts. The 7800 is the only 8 bit that comes close to approaching that kind of blinding madness... How close could it get? Can the 7800 compete with X-BOX live?

It's said the 7800 can draw unlimited sprites to the screen without flicker or slowdown, but how far can it go before it uses up the cart's memory or requires to computer to do too many calculations to update the visuals before the player notices the delay? What's keeping someone from creating say, a low resolution port of Mortal Kombat 2 with nearly full screen 16 color characters made of stacked 3 color sprites?

Street Fighter, Metal Gear ( NES conversion) , and Grand Theft Auto are all convincing arguments for revisiting mediocre first releases - who would have thought while signing the checks to the makers that these 3 names would be a license to print money in 2008?

Uh, those pictures illustrate who wrote the reviews on the site. You're trying to make it sound like I'm some legendary narcissist, when the simple fact is that EVERY review has a picture of the author next to it. That includes not only myself, but John Roche, Tony Bueno, Shawn Struck, and all the other reviewers who've written content for the site at some point in time. I'm pretty sure I've explained this to you before; hopefully this time you'll be able to comprehend it. Also, I just posted a video review, which you can either watch or ignore at your leisure. Would I like more people to watch my videos? Absolutely, but at this point it seems pretty hopeless. As Atarifever so astutely observed, crap sells. It's why Fox gets higher ratings than PBS and why the Ferrelly and Wayans brothers beat the Coen brothers in box office gross every time. It's an obnoxious, frustrating fact of life that I'll just have to learn to live with, as much as I hate it. I may try exploiting a market which hasn't yet been tapped. There's closed captioning on Youtube now, and the deaf audience isn't well served by screaming game reviewers. Maybe I'll target those guys from this point on. Before we go any further, I want you to read the updates list on the front page of your site. Actually read it. I wish I knew why you were hurting. I wish I could be there for you, talk videogames and life over a drink - you still are, and always will be one of my favorite posters here, no matter what you do wrong, just because you seem to actually give a damn about people's "what if" questions. But you can't make your splash page dysfunctional like that. Don't even bring depth into this - others have hurt just as bad as you, and made art out of it. You can't let your poison own you. PS - I won't argue with the perception those faces gave. Yes, there were others who reviewed, but your picture was the one that showed up the most, by far - I warned you that it looked like a vanity project. You disagreed. I disagreed with your disagreement. That's in the past now. I checked out your new look - so far I like what I see. More to come when I get the time...

The viewing public watches "Flav'a of Love" Artlover; it is okay to pass judgment on them (see that semi-colon; they could never do that). I'll do it right now. I'm actually drunk (not pretend AVGN drunk) and don't care. 95% of the viewing public of TV is made up of morons and 99% of the internet public is morons. It's fine to pass judgment on them, the AVGN and anyone else online. They are morons. I am not worried about saying that, because I don't care what morons think. As for the "don't watch it if you don't like it" thing, hey I'm communist. I'm cool with your communist ideals. However, if you think people shouldn't be able to watch and critique things they don't like, you're free to move to China. It's not the criticism that bothers me; nothing said here is new - critics have been hurling rocks at lowbrow comedy since pie hit face and foot hit balls, as if the people who watch it never watched anything else in their lives, and they base everything they do based on the last television show they watched. It's just another way to masturbate - just because you see stupid people doesn't mean you aren't part of the zombie horde. Nerd gives me a few lowbrow laughs when helping people struggling with mental illness gets to be too intense - it's 10 minutes of my day, once or twice a month - that leaves me plenty of time for Lenny Bruce and Jonathon Swift. What have you done? More important, what's Jess going to do? We're still waiting for him to make a move. He's got too much talent to waste it filling his webpage with pictures of himself and trying to guilt people into checking out his Youtube videos. If we didn't believe in him, we wouldn't have wasted this much time on the subject.