20th March 2012, 2:11 PM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:So I got a few games myself recently.I only have four VB games myself (Wario Land, Red Alarm, Vertical Force, and Mario's Tennis; I like all four games quite a bit), but I'd love to have some more... they're just a bit pricey, and I don't have an even more expensive AC adapter so I need batteries for anything and the VB gets bad battery life. Also my VB has some resetting issues -- sometimes it resets during play, which is ... not fun. I think it's a controller cord issue -- it's not the system itself. So either I need to use it with a stand, or I need a new controller too. And I just haven't gotten myself to spend the amount of money replacing all that stuff on EBay would cost, so my VB collection is kind of in stasis...
I found a complete (box and all) version of Tetris & Dr. Mario for SNES on the cheap. It's a fun game with a unique vs mode that sets up the possibility for one player to be playing one game and the other player to be playing the other, with "sent" blocks converted to match the other game world (though it would be interesting to see the sent blocks NOT converted in some future version, having to play with both rule sets in mind).
I also picked up three new Virtual Boy games, of all things. The system had few games and fewer I'd actually be interested in, but these were ones I had wanted for a while (well two of them, I picked them up as a set). I picked up Teleroboxer, which is a Punch Out clone with robots. It's got very nice controls on the VB. I've mentioned before how much I love the layout of the VB's controller, with the L and R buttons placed in the most natural positions I've ever seen them in, and a second d-pad before a second analog stick became a thing (the controller's left and right are mirror images of each other, a rarity that really lends itself to a boxing game of this sort). Teleroboxer isn't as good or even as long as Punch Out, but it's enjoyable and has very nice controls. The 3D is decent, with the enemy punches having the most "pop".
The resetting issue is also why I haven't beaten Red Alarm; haven't managed to get more than three levels into it without either getting a game over, or having it reset. Good game, but ... wish I could get farther.
As for Teleroboxer, I generally have no interest at all in boxing games, but the 3d and the dual-dpad controls do sound interesting. I wouldn't buy it on its own, but if it comes with VB games I buy at some point, I'd definitely try it out. I have heard it's extremely difficult, as you can only fight the real final boss if you have a perfect record or something... it does have battery save though.
Quote:Then there's Galactic Pinball. This one is pinball with a space theme, so boring so far, but it's got some fun board designs. Personally I'm still waiting for a pinball game with a powerful board designer built into it, but this one's nice. Again, the L and R buttons are just so naturally fit, but it also shows my inferiority at pinball because I'm still just not very good at the genre. Neither was the original owner. The game saves high scores (no erase option either), but I noted that whoever owned it last never broke onto any of the score boards. It's saved my pitiful "just barely" score beating out the last place pre-set entry on "UFO", so I know the battery is working. The 3D here is a lot better than Teleroboxer, which is surprising considering what I'd expect. The boards really pop out with the use of perspective.Galactic Pinball is the VB game I don't own that I want the most. I'd love to have this game, I like pinball games of course and have always wanted to play this one.. but it just seems to sell for a bit more online than I'm willing to spend and seeing loose VB games locally is not exactly something that happens often.
After Galactic Pinball, the VB game I want the most is probably the Japan-only Insmouse no Yakata...
Quote:The last is the best of the bunch, Mario Clash. It's Mario Bros (original Mario Bros, not even "Super Mario Bros") but in 3D. Much like Wario Land, the "3D" really consists of two different "planes" of 2D action, with the added ability to throw shells back and force between planes. While that's fairly dissappointing, the 3D effect still looks very solid and well done in this game and the added layer does add a lot of fun to the original game design. It's pretty addictive.I'd like to play this one too. I never loved the original Mario Bros, but Mario Clash does sound like it'd be fun enough to play at least.
Quote:The 3D effect, when programmed right, works well enough that I wish the system was capable of true filled polygons instead of just wire frames and sprites. The VB has a unique "feel" to it, with the "goggle" design making you feel like you're sucked into your own private little universe whenever you play it. Granted, I'd never rank that higher than the pure usability of a superior design like the no-glasses 3D screen of the 3DS, but it's certainly a notable trait. My own VB may be showing it's age. Earlier when I was playing it I noticed that the left display was badly aligned, with parts of the image "bounced" up. Oddly, this has corrected itself now, but I should keep an eye on it. The two displays (I hesitate to say screen) in the VB are very strange to begin with. They aren't LCD or CRT but a sort of oddly designed LED system. Extremely fast on/off speeds in an LED were a rather expensive thing when this system came out, and even then that sort of speed was only available in "red" variety. The cost and size of a full fledged LED screen, even limited to red, was too much so instead they set up two "rows" of LEDs. In order to produce a 2D "field" for each eye using these essentially "1D" lines, two mirrors were set up that vibrated with exact timing to bounce the light from any one individual LED light into position just at the right time. With this creating the illusion of two 2D images, the split with the visor did the rest to create the illusion of one 3D image. However, since the mirrors had to be exactly alligned and exactly timed, any deviation would screw up the image. That seemed to have happened with mine earlier, but it seems fixed now.Apparently the most common thing that goes wrong with VBs is that a ribbon cable in the system starts to come loose, which messes up the display. It can be fixed, apparently, but it is a common issue. I don't know if that's a symptom of it though, maybe look up that issue on VB sites. But it certainly sounds like you might have an issue with your VB, yes.
And yeah, it does use an odd mirrors and LEDs system. Definitely strange and unique.
Quote:Other than that, I picked up two NES games. Ironsword was a fun game I remembered playing as a kid, so I picked it up only to discover that it was actually a Rare game. No wonder it was fun.I've never liked Rare's Wizards & Warriors series, myself... I know many people seem to, but I don't much at all.