Top 50 Videogames: 37 and 36
Busier than usual lately. And it's only gonna get worse, but I'll try to keep doing these.
37. Contra (1988, Nintendo)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9. Well, probably ten, but you have the cheat code, so it's not totally impossible then. Still hard, though.
Played it with: Everyone. Nick and Bryan Ankeny especially.
Did I complete it? Many, many times...but probably never without the code.
Ah, yes. I was remembering this game as being easy, but after perusing reviews on it for the past few minutes, I'm being reminded how brutal it really was; the ease I'm remembering is that when you played two-player with each guy getting the 30-extra-guy code, then you could beat it. Otherwise, it was imfuckingpossible.
While I haven't gone on to play a lot of shooters as I've grown older, what still draws my attention about this game is that it's a side-scroller. Why this is being totally abandoned is beyond me; there's no reason for game developers to abandon the style just because they can. I know there are a few out there keeping the style alive, but not enough, I tells ya.
36. Space Harrier II (Sega, 1987)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 8. It started easy to give false hope.
Played it with: Nick and Ben Mullaly.
Did I complete it? I can't remember, but I remember it getting scary-hard toward the end, so I doubt it.
This is a weird entry in that I almost finished the list without remembering it; the Sega was something I used for a pretty small amount of time, but for those six months or so, this was the game I was almost always playing. It was this forward-scrolling thing that played with automatic breakneck speed; part of the difficulty was simply to avoid the trees and such ahead of you--the obstacles were at least as deadly as the enemies.
One bit of awesome oddness about this game: the title screen features a large, one-eyed woolly mammoth. But I could never figure out any reason in hell that it was there, because there were none in the game. Another: the game cover read "Space Harrier: The Two-Mega Cartridge." Complete with a trademark, that bit. What does that mean? What the hell does that mean?
37. Contra (1988, Nintendo)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9. Well, probably ten, but you have the cheat code, so it's not totally impossible then. Still hard, though.
Played it with: Everyone. Nick and Bryan Ankeny especially.
Did I complete it? Many, many times...but probably never without the code.
Ah, yes. I was remembering this game as being easy, but after perusing reviews on it for the past few minutes, I'm being reminded how brutal it really was; the ease I'm remembering is that when you played two-player with each guy getting the 30-extra-guy code, then you could beat it. Otherwise, it was imfuckingpossible.
While I haven't gone on to play a lot of shooters as I've grown older, what still draws my attention about this game is that it's a side-scroller. Why this is being totally abandoned is beyond me; there's no reason for game developers to abandon the style just because they can. I know there are a few out there keeping the style alive, but not enough, I tells ya.
36. Space Harrier II (Sega, 1987)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 8. It started easy to give false hope.
Played it with: Nick and Ben Mullaly.
Did I complete it? I can't remember, but I remember it getting scary-hard toward the end, so I doubt it.
This is a weird entry in that I almost finished the list without remembering it; the Sega was something I used for a pretty small amount of time, but for those six months or so, this was the game I was almost always playing. It was this forward-scrolling thing that played with automatic breakneck speed; part of the difficulty was simply to avoid the trees and such ahead of you--the obstacles were at least as deadly as the enemies.
One bit of awesome oddness about this game: the title screen features a large, one-eyed woolly mammoth. But I could never figure out any reason in hell that it was there, because there were none in the game. Another: the game cover read "Space Harrier: The Two-Mega Cartridge." Complete with a trademark, that bit. What does that mean? What the hell does that mean?