Counting the hours before Re: Chain of Memories is in your hands while simultaneously doing what you’re actually paid to do requires a break every once in awhile, right? See how you do on this…

Can you name the Video Game Systems (released in the U.S.)? quiz where you must name every U.S.-released gaming console you can think of in 12 minutes.

My best was 39 out of 69.

This week’s game: Jurassic Park
Release in 1994 for the SNES

Jurassic Park has been one of my favorite books since the early 90s. For those who haven’t heard the sad news yet, Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton died yesterday after succumbing to cancer.

So in his honor, here’s a look back at the video game inspired by the movie inspired by his book, Jurassic Park for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Though the game was actually released on several other systems, the SNES version is the best of the bunch. Rather loosely based on the events of the book/movie, Jurassic Park, developed by Ocean, stands out for not only it’s well-done graphics (for the time… though even now, it’s a very pretty game) and music, but also for it’s difficulty and variety of gameplay.

In the game, you are cast as Dr. Alan Grant. Your ultimate goal is, of course, to escape from Jurassic Park without being eaten by a random velociraptor by completing various tasks to not only ensure your own survival, but to prevent the terrible lizards from leaving the island as well.

Your enemies from the gamut from the tiny procompsognathids (which were sadly lacking from the movie) to the might T-Rex. In addition to the top-down action style of the outdoor area, the game also features a variety of indoor first-person shooter style levels, similar to Wolfenstein or Doom.

The only real downside to the game (other than having to find and collect something like 18 raptor eggs before you can complete the game…) is the lack of save points. I will admit, I was frustrated when I’d be an hour or so into the game and then suddenly lose my last life, forcing me to start over. But hey, it was the 90s.

Any fan of the movie/book will find this an easy game to get really, really into. If you’ve still got your SNES laying around somewhere, pick up a copy… they can be found fairly cheap these days… and give it a try.

I’m admittedly not fond of Wolfenstein 3D and similar games. Of course I’ve played it… I just never got into it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the fact that someone out there took the time to create a Wolfenstein-inspired interface for Flickr:

WolfenFlickr 3D

Hells yes, that is awesome.

This week’s game: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Released in 1996 for the SNES

Before the ever-popular Paper Mario series brought a touch of RPGness to the Mario world, there was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Developed by Square (now Square-Enix), of Final Fantasy fame, and with guidance from Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, It was the first RPG in the Mario series.

I met with mixed reactions to this game back in the day. Most people seemed to like it, but every once in a while you’d come across someone who couldn’t stand it. Nowadays, it seems to have been elevated to near cult classic-status with copies selling for upwards of $30 once all is said and done.

The game centers largely around a character named Geno and his quest to collect seven Star Pieces… fragments of the Star Road, where he lives. Mario and company, meanwhile, have had to contend with the mysterious Smithy Gang, agree to join Geno on this quest, hoping that the outcome will be beneficial to them all.

Super Mario RPG’s gameplay is, much like the later Paper Mario games, something of a combination of platforming and RPG-style turn-based battles. Unlike previous Mario games, the action did not take place in a side-scrolling environment, but rather in an approximation of a 3D environment (which was pretty unique at the time). The five playable characters each have their own attacks and special techniques, adding some variety to battles.

The game has recently been released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan and Europe… here’s hoping it makes it to the U.S. Virtual Console as well.

Shadowgate
Released in 1989 for the NES

Shadowgate, a point-and-click adventure game, pits the last of a great line of hero-kings against the evil Warlock Lord. The object of the game is to navigate your way through the eerie, ancient, and not-entirely-empty Castle Shadowgate, locate the Staff of Ages, and defeat the Warlock Lord before he can summon the demon-beast Behemoth from Hell (hey, what do you want? It was the 80s..).

Your life depends on your ability to figure out how to get from one room to the next before your supply of torches is spent (at which point you wander aimlessly through the dark for a bit and then die). The game is played in first-person view, with a mouse-like cursor that allows you to navigate and select commands… which makes sense, seeing as the game was originally created for Macintosh computers.

To be honest, this is a great game to play. Once. Maybe twice. After the first time, it loses a lot of it’s difficulty, although some of the puzzles do have more than one solution. It’s also amusing to see how many different methods you can find to kill yourself, though (and there are plenty of ways to do it). However, it’s still a terrific game for that one first playthrough, which kind of makes hunting down a copy worth it.

It was good enough to, at least, to inspire a couple of sequels… Beyond Shadowgate for the TurboGrafx 16, and Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers for the Nintendo 64.

The former, I’ve never laid eyes on. The latter I have played, and it’s a decent title (but not an exceptional one) and much longer than the original. Like the original, it’s good for one or two playthroughs before you have the solutions committed to memory and it ceases to hold any challenge.

I love to collect things. I have several collections. Russ Trolls. Final Fantasy figures. Rocks. But one thing I’ve never understood is the desire of some collectors to house the things they collect in plastic, never to be touched. Or exposed to things like… you know… air.

So when I saw this, it just struck me as a waste of a perfectly good game. Yes, those are classic games encased in acrylic, suffering pitiously for lack of being played. The idea behind this blasphemy is similar to the way coins and baseball cards and the like are graded and encased to protect them and increase their value.

The encapsulation is done by the Video Game Authority, which, for a fee, will grade the condition of your precious never-opened copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 and lock it away in a tamper-evident block.

Now me, personally… if I buy a game, I have every intention of playing it. I don’t buy games to display them on a shelf, nor do I buy them as an investment. I don’t really care about their condition, as long as the console will still play it (hence why a fair portion of my library is scratched all to hell, missing the booklet and/or original case, and has other people’s names etched in permanent marker on the discs… they were purchased second hand for cheap).

Even more appalling is the prices some of these graded games are selling for. Sure, Super Mario Bros. 3 is an awesome game, but is it really worth $100+ when you can find the same thing sans box and booklet for $1.25 plus shipping?

To each his own, I suppose, but it seems a pity to let a perfectly good game sit around without ever being played. Of course, I also took my Final Fantasy figures out of their boxes, so I suppose I’ll never really understand.

Super Mario Bros. 3
Released in 1990 for the NES

Ah yes, good old Super Mario Bros. 3… arguably the greatest of the Mario series, as nothing has yet even come close to topping it’s glory.

Not only was it a return to the original Mario formula (following the oft lambasted Super Mario Bros. 2), it also had an advertising campaign in the form of a feature-length movie. How many other games can say that?

Many a gamer out there must surely remember 1989’s The Wizard… the fun-filled romp that culminated in the unveiling of Super Mario Bros. 3 for North America (remember those days back before people heard about things months in advance via the internet? How did we survive those dark times?) The film was one giant commercial for Nintendo.

But what really makes SMB3 special is that not only was it a return to roots, it managed to add improvements that didn’t utterly suck. Among these were the introduction of the world map, and additional fire power in the form of raccoon tails, frog suits, and giant bouncing shoes. I literally begged my parents to buy me this game from the moment I first heard about it until the moment it was in my hand.

It was also the beginning of a number of future Mario staples like Chain Chomps, Thwomps, and Bowser’s annoying attempts to jump on you and crush you to bits. It even spawned it’s own cartoon, now avaiable on DVD.

This week’s game: A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
Released in 1989 for Nintendo Entertainment System

The gist of this game is that you are a boy. And you have a friendly blob who follows you around wherever you go. And the blob can turn into a multitude of different objects when you feed him various flavors of jelly beans, which you just happen to have on hand.

No! Come back! I swear it’s not as asinine as it sounds!

It’s actually a tricky game with a combination of platforming and problem-solving. A nifty little twist that make the game that much more difficult is that the boy cannot attack enemies. The object is to evade, while at the same time finding your way through the game’s various areas and collecting treasures so that you can purchase vitamins used as ammo for the only weapon in the game (which has a limited number of times it can be used), the Vitablaster.

As strange as the plot (such as it is) is, the game itself was quite a lot of fun. Using the correct flavor of jellybean at the right time in the right place isn’t as simple as it sounds, especially as certain flavors come in very limited numbers. As this was one of the very first games I ever owned, I’m probably a little nostalgic about it. I made my parents rent it so many times, they finally decided it would be cheaper to just buy it for me (and I still have it in my collection).

There was even a sequel released on GameBoy, and talk of another game for DS (which sadly looks to have been cancelled).

I usually find that gimicky peripherals, at best, add very little to the overall gaming experience, and at worst are completely and utterly useless. But they can still be pretty snazzy looking, and every once in awhile you come across something that’s actually entertaining. So today, lets look at some add-ons and alternative-style controllers, past, present, and future.

Part 1: The Past

Power Glove - I suppose this could be considered the precursor to the Wii Remote. The Power Glove was a wearable controller that allowed the player to control the game through a combination of a control pad mounted on the glove and physical movement. The only problem was that it kind of sucked. A lot. The motion-sensing was limited (and occasionally unresponsive), and holding your arm out in front of you for more than 20 minutes at a time did not make for a fun experience. On the bright side, the Power Glove was featured in 1989’s The Wizard. Suckosity aside, to this day I still can’t bear to part with mine.

R.O.B. - Looking an awful lot like Number 5 from Short Circuit (does anyone besides me actually remember that movie?), Nintendo’s “Robotic Operating Buddy” was a cute little guy that reacted to oncreen light flashes and moved around accordingly. Granted, he was only compatible with Gyromite and Stack-Up… but that was enough to earn him a major roll in 2008’s Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Miracle Piano Teaching System - This was a piano keyboard that plugged into your NES and came with a “game” that taught you how to play piano. How effective was it? I actually used to own one of these… I still can’t play anything other than Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The Zapper and the Super Scope - What list would be complete without a nod to the Zapper and it’s bastard child, the Super Scope? Yes, the zapper… so “realistic” that Nintendo decided to change it’s color from shades of grey to a blinding florescent orange. And let’s not forget that it was the weapon of choice for Captain N (again, does anyone else actually remember this?). The Super Scope, on the other hand was a bazooka-shaped battery hog, measuring a whopping 2 feet long (making storage tedious at best).

The Power Pad - Another classic not-so-useful creation, the Power Pad strove to incorporate exercise into the gaming experience. Nearly all of the handful of games developed for it involved running in place (or beating wildly on the pad with your hands, which was far more effective, in my opinion). Probably the most well-remembered game was World Class Track Meet, which was included as part of a bundle with the NES console in the late 80s.

XBAND - I’ve found that very few people remember/have ever heard of this one. XBAND was the infant stage of online gaming. Designed for the SNES and Sega Genesis, it allowed players to go head-to-head on games like Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, and Madden NFL 96. Unfortunately, having been released in 1994, it was limited to the crawling speeds of dial-up, and many compatible games experienced severe lag during online play. It wasn’t exactly cheap, either, operating on a subscription basis, and charging for long distance if you played against someone outside of your local calling area.

Coming up next: Peripherals of the Present

I’ve been playing video games since I was around 9 or so (I would have started sooner, but my parents wouldn’t buy me an NES when they first came out), so I tend to get a little nostalgic when it comes to old titles I remember playing ages ago. One of my biggest pet peeves, though, is when people dismiss the classics out of hand just because they’re old. Occasionally, I’ll ask someone if they’ve played an older title and they tell me that they don’t bother with retro games because they’re old, they’re ugly, or (my favorite) they’re too hard.

Since when did the basis of whether a game is/was/will be awesome or not depend entirely on whether or not it looks pretty? And when did challenge become a bad thing?

Of course not ever gamer is locked into this mindset, but the younger ones among us frequently seem to be, even with newer games. Take Zack & Wiki, for example… an excellent point-and-click title for Wii, but with very cartoonish graphics. There are, quite frankly, PS2 games from years ago that look cooler. But that doesn’t make it a bad game. In fact it’s a very good game. I badgered my sister into playing it while she was in town last December, and within 20 minutes she was hooked and said she’d like a copy of her own for Christmas.

The newest generation of gamers are spoiled by HD graphics, orchestrated scores, and frequent save points. Not that those are always a bad thing, by any means - I like pretty graphics, I have game music on my MP3 player, and I would have gone nuts trying to get through something like FFXII without a save point - but you can have a game that looks gorgeous and sounds amazing, but plays like absolute trash. The most important aspect of any game is how well it plays, not how old it is.