Home Alone for the SNES
Home Alone was a great movie, but for some reason someone somewhere thought it would also make a great video game. We video game fans are always wary of games licensed from feature films, and Home Alone isn't going to help change anyone's mind on that. Many years ago I acquired a copy of this game for the Game Boy and wasn't fond of it by any means. Usually any video game that has been ported to the Game Boy is much better on a home console, right? The answer is ... Read more
Posted 9 months ago
Driver Parallel Lines
Driver Parallel Lines is one of my absolute, all-time favorite games. I also feel it's the most competent GTA clone ever made. Let's be honest here, by this point the Driver series was chasing GTA and trying its hardest to grab a chunk of its success. With Driv3r being, well Driv3r, the series needed a refresh; it needed something that made it stand out, but not something so drastic that it felt like a completely different game. Driver Parallel Lines came along with an air or familiarity, but also one of ... Read more
Posted 10 months ago
Peripheral Vision: NES Advantage
When I was a kid I remember having my first encounter with a turbo NES controller and wanting one of my own immediately. At this point we didn't have Gamestop or FuncoLand yet, but we did have a local chain of used video game stores, whose name I've forgotten over the years. One sunny Saturday morning, while my mother grocery shopped at the adjacent grocery store, I walked into the gaming store and took a look around. After browsing the games I walked up to the counter and asked if they had ... Read more
Posted 10 months ago
Video Games Based on Obscure Movies
Throughout video gaming history there have been many video games based on movies. In many cases movie based video games target an audience who are already familiar with, and probably already fans of, the source material that gave the video game its title. In some rare cases a movie based video game can be based upon something more obscure or older than the player, or the video games itself, leaving the player unfamiliar with its source material, or origins.
A personal example would be one of my favorite original Playstation games: The Italian Job. The year was around 2002, and I ... Read more
Posted 10 months ago
TVG Repair: NES Controller IC Replacement
Back when I was thrifting regularly I found NES controllers quite frequently, so I would pick them up for, at the very least, tradable assets. NES controllers were designed and built to last forever, or so it seemed until I found, ironically, an NES dog bone controller with actual dog chew marks on it. I originally figured something inside of the controller had been severed, or maybe the cable was snapped internally, so I went to work testing a few theories I had. Since the dog bone NES controllers have cables that detach from the internal board I swapped them ... Read more
Posted 10 months ago
Driv3r
Yep, I'm doing this, I'm reviewing Driv3r. I absolutely loved Driver 1 and 2 so I was chomping at the bit for a copy of Driv3r to come in at my local used media store. Ok, I'm a bit lazy and by the time I actually realized Driv3r was a thing the game was already massively panned online, and even had it's own scandal about how badly it had been panned. So in 2006, with my Xbox at the ready, I figured it was time I took a chance and ... Read more
Posted 11 months ago
Are Walkthroughs and Guides a Bad Thing?
Since the dawn of the internet people have used their space therein to document their success in video games with the intention of helping others who might be stuck on the same game. Websites like GameFAQs and RPGClassics are two that spring to mind when it comes to places to find documentation of videos and how to beat them. I will admit to using both websites quite a few times when I've become stuck on various video games. A quick search online and a complete walkthrough pops up, filled with information ranging from the very basic walkthrough to in-depth puzzle ... Read more
Posted 11 months ago