27th September 2006, 4:30 PM
A Black Falcon Wrote:Those are mostly full-on remakes, something somewhat different from re-release collections... though Mario Allstars is something in between, since it has the original gameplay, just with new graphics... Metroid Zero Mission and Sword of Mana though aren't re-releases, they're remakes. I guess I can see why you'd include them in this group too though, as they are redos of older games... and yes, it'd be cool if each time someone remade an old game they included old games from the series in it, but while certainly not the rule, it does happen sometimes... it's much less common for collections of old games to include multiple versions of each game than for new games or remakes to include old ones in the series, I think -- like how Zero Mission does include Metroid, but Mario Advance doesn't includes the NES versions of those games... since it's an upgraded re-release, not a true new game, you're assumed to want the latest version, even if you don't. :)
Yeah, still the original is always nice, even if it's just "classic mode" gameplay. By the way, there actually is a small list of gameplay changes in SM All-Stars. The one thing I noticed first time through is that a block normally fairly hidden by the background art in SMB1 (intentionally) is now clear as day. Also, some of the artwork is a little missing. I love the remake's graphics, but in SMB3 I sort of miss the sky being filled with little stars and flowers when you fly high enough. The one other thing that comes to mind is that there's no way to beat SMB3 in All-Stars so that you can restart the game with a full set of P-Wings.
Quote:I think they were trying to save money on the extra couple of CDs those games would have required... :p
Yes, they are cheap too.
Quote:Not just blue bars, there's also the cursors and the size of the window (how I said how the DOS one are fullscreen, while the Windows ones have various things on the screen that in comparison greatly limit the amount of screen actually taken up by the game... (and no, it's not about resolution -- remember how these games either require or very strongly recommend a 640x480 desktop? Yeah. Not exactly 800x600 compatible. Having to switch the desktop resolution before playing each game (and then back afterwards) is a pain too...)
XP doesn't have that issue. You can assign a compatibilty profile to the game's shortcut that automatically converts down, starts the game, and then converts up when you are done playing. Doesn't do a "true" resolution drop that way though... a small problem they should resolve... also, resizing will resort the desktop icons which is annoying. What are "various things"? Aside from that bar, if you are in full screen mode, the rest of the screen should be filled with the game itself. Eh, I suppose for me it's worth it for the other advantages. Again, if they did a good job with these ports, they could basically just take the Windows version and slap in high res versions of KQ5's cursors as well as taking out those title bars.
Quote:As for the music, as I said, I didn't notice a difference at all in either 5 or 7... maybe I can check that again with 5, but I didn't notice anything when playing it.
I'll still experiment a little with the sound settings. I may just have the wrong item selected for music.
Quote:If by "liked 7" you mean "the family got it at some point, and when I played the opening area, got frusterated and gave up early on in, and I don't think anyone else did much better, until a couple of years ago I went back to it and played through it with frequent reference to GameFAQs", then yes, I liked 7... ;)
Seriously, I liked the graphics, graphical design, and music, but the puzzles were very illogical a lot of the time and the "you die and restart from your save/from nearby" thing, while not as cruel as "I sure hope you saved recently before doing that thing that you'd never have guessed would kill you, ha ha!", is still really frusterating...
Oh, I was under the impression you enjoyed it as opposed to forcing yourself to play it... oh well. Also, what's so frustrating about dying and instantly coming back? They give you clever hints and I actually like a little threat to my adventuring sometimes.
By the way, horror of horrors, they didn't include the first SWAT game with the Police Quest collection (in spite of it being in the last PQ collection), and they included the floppy disk version of Leisure Suit Larry 6 (so no voices for you!). So, no original versions of the first games of the series (and in the case of SQ1 at least, there really is a total overhaul using a point and click interface), no windows versions of the CD games in the series (and I've listed my complaints about that, there should be a choice and there was plenty of room on two CDs to include both versions, which I know because I have two previous collections to prove it), and two games included in previous collections are missing (LSL7 and PQ: SWAT) as well as ALL the extras.
I think it's no real surprise that Sierra didn't really make a big deal of these. They didn't want to call attention to themselves. /geek I sure hope those crazy online comic guys lampoon this hard! That'd show them!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)