If La Mulana had been released on the SNES, it would have stood right up there with games like Castlevania and SUper Metroid as one of the greatest titles of the 16-bit generation. The game isn’t pretty shabby today either. La Mulana is an upgrade of an independently developed game. The original La Mulana (available for free on Tiggit) was done as a tribute to classic MSX games, and was developed by Takumi Naramura. A company known as Nigoro snatched up the game, upgraded it’s visuals to resemble 16-bit gaming systems, and ported it to WiiWare, while GR3 Project ported it to Microsoft Windows. Having a exploration-heavy style of gameplay similar to Metroid and later Castlevania titles, La Mulana puts players in the role of a young archaeologist who explores an ancient tomb. You’ll gather items and abilities to progress, and the game is non linear. The game has a high difficulty level and leaves it up to you to figure out how to progress. You’ll run into several bosses and characters throughout your journey. If you’re a fan of classic action games, you will want to add this to your collection. It’s available at Gog.com, where it’s discounted as part of the site’s winter sale.
Women in gaming have made tremendous strides, both onscreen and off, behind the scenes, or playing the games. Fans of the Female Shepard in the Mass Effect series — male and female alike — encouraged BioWare to finally put her in their advertisements and materials just so that other gamers would know she exists. It’s 2011; are women still being overlooked in gaming? Sean talks to guest panelists Sindra and Megan about what it’s like to be such a minority in gaming culture, and discuss their favorite heroines from the aforementioned Shepard, to “Lady Hawke” from Dragon Age 2, Samus in Metroid, Alex Roivas in Eternal Darkness, and more! And Sean tries to avoid saying “that’s what she said” for almost an entire hour.
Did you miss us? We’re back with the most epic episode yet: Scott Pilgrim vs. Duke Nukem, Other M, Fringe, Inception, Grimlock, Poker Night at the Inventory, and Bioware DLC! Who will win?
Nintendo has tried live action commercials for Metroid games in the past, and usually the effects are so corny they’re a disservice to the games. With spots for Halo raising the bar, I’m happy to see Metroid has a 60 second spot worthy of the franchise.
I really shouldn’t be impressed by a flash trailer I can click on, but I can’t recall any video game doing something like this in the past. Here it is: an interactive preview video for an interactive game!
Metroid Other M will be other August 31, which is not soon enough.
Preorder Metroid: Other M from Amazon today and get a $20 credit toward your next game purchase!
Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.
The sixteen bit era of video games is considered by many to be the bridge between the past and modern eras of video gaming, and there were two kings of the ring: Nintendo’s Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega’s Genesis. Though there were more powerful systems that sprang up around the time, it would be these two that would outlast and outperform all of them, thanks to their accessibility. This was due not only to the technologies that the two systems boasted under the hood, but also with the library of games that were released for the two. It also gave rise to some of those most heated fanboy wars of our hobby. If you think system wars are bad now, you should have seen how bad it was during the 16-bit days, especially when system manufacturers were openly taking pot shots at each other. However, it was pointless for fanboys of both systems to argue with each other, as both systems not only had an equally impressive library of games (even if many multiplatform releases on the Sega Genesis tended to have inferior audio and visual quality to their SNES counterparts), but they outlasted and outsold the more powerful systems that sprang up around the same period. Click below to take a look back at one of gaming’s most exciting eras. [Read the rest of this entry…]
by FakeTrout, filed in Uncategorized on Feb.24, 2010
Nintendo held a big media summit today and spilled that what everyone assumed would be their big fall/holiday games are actually their big summer/spring games! Super Mario Galaxy (new trailer above) will release on May 23rd. Metroid: Other M will release June 27.
Unfortunately, Nintendo didn’t feel like releasing a sweet compilation of footage for Metroid: Mother M. so you can enjoy this gallery of gameplay screenshots at Joystiq.