Winter Games!

General and high profile video game topics.
goldenband
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby goldenband » December 5th, 2017, 12:58 pm

Two winter-themed games from the pre-crash that don't have reviews yet are:

Intellivision - Mountain Madness Super Pro Skiing
Atari 5200 - Pengo

It'd be great to see those get coverage.

And then there's Steel Harbinger, a wonderfully strange (and very Nineties) third-person shooter on the PS1. You don't start out in a wintry mix, but once you clear the first stage, your mission hub is found in the Arctic. Much snow and ice ensue.

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Stalvern
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby Stalvern » December 5th, 2017, 6:23 pm

goldenband wrote:And then there's Steel Harbinger, a wonderfully strange (and very Nineties) third-person shooter on the PS1. You don't start out in a wintry mix, but once you clear the first stage, your mission hub is found in the Arctic. Much snow and ice ensue.

This jogged my memory of the classic (???) mech FPS Krazy Ivan, which is every bad stereotype of early PS1 games but still kinda fun. There isn't a whole lot of snow in the actual stages, but the draw-in fades to white for some bizarre reason, so it constantly looks like there's snow in front of you that magically melts as you get closer to it. There is a whole lot of snow in the FMV intro, though, along with terrible CG effects and some Boris-and-Natasha-grade "Russian" accents from the bad guys. It would probably get a D here, maybe C- on a good day, but there's something to be said for how much of a time capsule it is.

Edit: I pulled it up on YouTube. The CGI is better than I remembered, but the accents are so much worse! (And those are actually the good guys, I guess?)

goldenband
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby goldenband » December 6th, 2017, 11:18 pm

Ha, I enjoyed Krazy Ivan too! I've owned it for a while, and finally got around to beating it on all difficulties a couple years back. It's pretty basic in many ways, but kept me entertained.

I love those early PlayStation titles. They had a fun, free-for-all spirit that got lost as the "rules" for 3D gaming became more codified. Sometimes they're simplistic, but it's that very simplicity that makes them a welcome alternative to those 20-hour slogs and their in-game tutorials. It'd be great to see the Critic review both Krazy Ivan and Steel Harbinger.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby Retro STrife » December 7th, 2017, 12:23 am

Retro STrife wrote:Was searching for games earlier today and found this game called Santa Claus Saves the Earth, which was released in 2002 for PS1 and GBA. As far as I can tell, the PS1 game only got a European release, and can be a bit pricey on ebay. The GBA game is easier to find and pretty cheap. Looks like a terrible game, yet oddly appealing for Christmas. Here's a review I found too:

http://www.thepixelempire.net/santa-cla ... eview.html


I'm quoting myself here above, but I actually bought the GBA version online after making that post, and received it today- so I figured I'd follow up with more details, now that I played a few levels. The game starts out very promisingly, with a nice title screen and Christmas music playing. The background story is weird..something about an evil fairy trapping Santa in a magic land to prevent kids from getting presents, and Santa has to gradually get himself out of the magic land.

Things only go more downhill when the game starts. It doesn't feel much like a Christmas game. Instead, the game feels like an awful generic platformer, that just happens to have Santa in it. It feels like it probably originally starred some lame character, and they probably canceled the game, and then realized "hey if we throw Santa in as the main character, we can probably sell a few copies of this garbage at Christmas!" So it literally just feels like Santa inserted into a generic game. Music plays during the game, but it's not holiday music. Also, while their are some snow and ice levels, most of the scenery and enemies have nothing to do with Christmas. The levels have boring design, the platforming is just ok, and the combat is terrible and leads to some cheap hits on you. This is much worse than the CD-i Christmas games.

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby DaHeckIzDat » December 7th, 2017, 12:59 pm

We Wish You a Merry Christmas on the Wii is a largely unknown, but supposedly charming, Christmas game. Maybe you should check it out.

Image

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pacman000
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby pacman000 » December 7th, 2017, 10:42 pm

"but I actually bought the GBA version (of Santa Saves) online after making that post, and received it today"

Does this mean Telegames is still around, or did you buy it from a reseller?

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pacman000
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby pacman000 » December 7th, 2017, 11:22 pm

How about Mountain Man?

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-26 ... _7999.html

A combination Skiing/Hunting game.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby Retro STrife » December 8th, 2017, 9:23 am

pacman000 wrote:"but I actually bought the GBA version (of Santa Saves) online after making that post, and received it today"

Does this mean Telegames is still around, or did you buy it from a reseller?


Not sure about Telegames. But it's a 2002 game, so I just bought it used from a reseller for $6.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby VideoGameCritic » December 28th, 2017, 9:47 pm

pacman000 wrote:How about Mountain Man?

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-26 ... _7999.html

A combination Skiing/Hunting game.


So I downloaded the ROM to my Harmony Cart, and I was all psyched up about playing this.
But there's a problem. Since it's a PAL game, the screen is jumping all over the place.
Any advice? I would like to review this if possible.

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pacman000
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Re: Winter Games!

Postby pacman000 » December 30th, 2017, 8:43 am

Awhile back AtariAge had some folks modifying ROMs, creating NTSC versions of PAL games and visa versa.

http://atariage.com/software_conversions.php

Looks like Mountain Man was never converted. So... Emulation? Or buy a PAL system and TV..,


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