Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Mario on Drugs?
He's creator, Shigeru Miyamato could also be doing some snorting/injecting. The man does like to garden in his spair time, so who knows what he's growing. Now I don't condone drug use, but the Mario games are widely regarded as some of the greatest titles in gaming. So this would be the one time where I'd say we should let the man smoke/shoot up/inject whatever he wants.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Favorite Mario Power-Ups
Outside of SMB3, the Mega Mushroom in New Super Mario Bros. was great. It was basically an improved version of Starman, except you had the added bonus of being friggin' huge!
So what are some of your favorite Mario powers?
Sunday, December 21, 2008
8-Bit Christmas Music
8-Bit Jesus
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Happy 21st Birthday, Mega Man!!
Has it really been 21 years? Why, yes it has. On December 17th, 1987 in Japan, the first Rockman game hit the NES (he's called Rockman over there for all 3 of you that didn't know). The game made it to American in December of the same year as well, under the name Mega Man, only with far less appealing box art. Thankfully, said horrific box art didn't stop Mega Man from becoming what he has today.
My first encounter with Mega Man was the summer of 1989. I was haning out at a friend's place and like most kids back in the day, we were playing the NES. Of all the games my friend had, this one game really stood out to me. It was Mega Man 2. I wasn't very good at the game at all. I died on both Bubble Man and Wood Man's levels. But I was really liked the game and wanted to play more of it, despite my suckitude.
Long story short, that Sunday afternoon that I spent at my friends place is the reason I am now and forever will be a Mega Man addict. I don't care if the games are basically the same thing again and again. The little guy rocks and so do his numerous brothers. Thanks to the original Mega Man's creation, we have Mega Man X, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Zero and so on. Here's to another 21 years of Mega Man.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Mega Man vs. All 8 MM2 Robot Masters... All At Once
Rockman 2 Neta is a homebrew which pits Mega Man against all 8 robot masters at the same time. You read right, you fight all 8 of them at once, in the same room. Watch and be amazed. Play it and see if you too, can be a Rocking Mega Man. The download link is in the video description. No harm in using E-Tanks. Not everyone is as good a player as qzecwx.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Earth Man!!!
View the fake commercial here.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Rocking Manga
Anyhoo, in addition to a few chapters of Rockman Megamix (the whole thing hasn't been translated yet), there's other manga like Rockman Zero and Go Go! Rockman. Here's to hoping more Mega Man manga gets released in America.
You can read some Rockman manga here.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Toughest Met
Dr. Wily, Quick Man, Shadow Man, the Yellow Devil? Amateurs, all of them. They all pail in comparison to Mega Man's toughest foe, who is an unsuspecting Met, or Hard Hat for those that prefer to call them that.
View the epic showdown here.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Rockman 3 Goes On Forever
Despite Mega Man 3 being widely viewed as one of the best games in the Mega Man series, there have hardly been any good rom hacks for the game. Sure, there's Mega Lion, but it just replaces the character sprites with animals and alters what little text there is. For my money, Rockman 3 Endless is the best Rockman 3 hack you'll find.
Just like Rockman 5 Endless, Rockman 3 Endless is a never ending survival mode where you try to clear as many screens as you can without dying, much the same as Mega Man 9's Endless Challenge mode, which gave birth to these "Endless" hacks to begin with. On my first go, I cleared 57 screens before I bit it and I died on a bad jump in Gemini Man's section. Like Rockman 5 Endless, you havea all of your weapons and Rush forms from the get-go and you'll really appreciate the brokeness of Rush Jet in this hack. Tough areas like the Magnet Man section pictured above and be completely bypassed by using it.
Be sure to patch a Rockman 3 rom, not Mega Man 3 rom. Just click the picture in the link provided. As with Rockman 5 Endless, Rockman 3 Endless seems to get frequent updates. As I was writing this blog entry, I found out that a newer version has been posted. Check the author's site often!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Mega Man the Movie?
If you wan to see some images of the film, just go here.
From the trailer, I can already tell you that Roll is annoying and if they really want to make something of film that is no doubt gonna suck on so many levels, Guts Man should throw a rock on here.
As much as I'd rather see a full length anime Mega Man movie, I'll still end up checking this out. My word, I need help.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Mega Man Was On Bad Mother...
Monday, November 10, 2008
What Mega Man's Box Art Should Have Looked Like
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A Loser is You!
Download LOSER: A Sega Genesis Tribute Album
Thursday, October 30, 2008
If Louie Armstrong Sung About Super Mario World
Watch it. NOW!!!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Yep, More Game Music
First up, MegaCollection Vol 1. This is a collection of outstanding Medleys from the Mega Man games. There's six tracks total and while the Medleys don't go into the next song continuously, that does not keep this album from being a winner. Even more props for doing Medleys with songs from some of the under appreciated themes like Pharaoh Man, which has always been one of my favorite Mega Man tracks. I'm already hyped for Vol. 2 if there is indeed a Vol. 2
Download MegaCollection Vol. 1
I finally found a game rip to one of my favorite games for the Nintendo 64, Bettle Adventure Racing! Among other things, the N64 was heavily criticized for it's audio processor. Sega and Sony were living it up with CD systems and Nintendo was still stuck in the past using carts. When people knew what they were doing, the N64 produced some really sweet sounds. BAR's music was handled by Phil Western, Scott Blackwood, and Brenden Tennant. I think wiki sums up BAR's soundtrack pretty well. "The music in BAR is a groovy, breakbeat soundtrack with loud drums, organs, and guitars." It's realy flipping sweet.
Download Beetle Adventure Racing! soundtrack
You're probably look at the album art to the right and thinking "Downtwon What?" That's the Japanese name for River City Ransom, a cult favorite from the NES era. School kids just gotta kidnap girlfriends and rivals gotta team up to give said school kids a well-deserved butt-kicking. Only River City Ransom and a few Super Dodge Ball games made it to the states, but in Japan, the franchise is pretty famous. There have been titles on nearly every Nintendo platform overseases, a few of them have even been translated by fans.
Downtown Nekketsu Monogatri collects the music from each system that River City Ransom was on. NES, PC Engine X68000, and GBA That's over 70 tracks!
Downtow Nekketsu Monogatari: Complete Collection
I was originally post more beats, but then that would result in an insanely huge blog post. More late, kids.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Mother 3, In ENGLISH
The Mother series began it's life on the Famicom and wouldn't come to America until 1995 under the name EarthBound and in reality, this was Mother 2. The game was widely regarded as one of the best RPGs on the SNES and gushed of excellents in sound, story, and humor.
I remember reading about Mother 3 in the late '90s, hoping the game would see a state side release. Since the Nintendo 64DD (the system Mother 3 was in development for at the time) tanked, so did any hope of seeing the game. But wait! Mother 3 was given new life on the Game Boy Advance in 2003, and then released in Japan in 2006. And wouldn't you know it, Nintendo didn't bring the game over to America.
A group of fans decided to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes if you want something done at all, you gotta do it yourself. Ladies and gentleman. Boys and girls. Mother 3 is now available in English. I haven't played it but from what I'm hearing, Mother 3 is enough to make grown men drop to their knees and weep. Apparently the game is that good. I just hope Nintendo doesn't send the fans who translated the game a cease and disist. After all, all they did was make a translation patch. At any rate, you can now enjoy Mother 3 and understand what the heck is going on. Hooray!
Mother 3 In English
Monday, October 20, 2008
Mega Man 9 Mini Manga!
Now if this is your first time reading a Rockman Megamix manga, then you may be confused on a couple of things. *SPOILER ALERT* You may be asking "Why are the robot masters from Mega Man 1 good guys?" Simple. In the first Rockman Megamix comic series, they returned to being peace keepers after Mega Man stopped their rampage. These guys were originally made by Dr. Light, afterall. *END SPOILERS*
On top of Ariga-San's sweet artwork, the story ain't too shabby either. Anyone that's played the Mega Man games will be trilled to see the Dr. Cossack, Kalinka (Cossack's daughter), and Bright Man appear, even if they only show up in a panel or two. It makes me wish for a proper Mega Man anime and for the rest of the Mega Man mangas to be brought states side.
If you want to read the manga, go here.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Rockboard: Translated
So what is Rockboard? Well, it's a video game board game that has your favorite Mega Man characters buying up properties, gambling and... well, even after playing the game for a bit, I still don't know %100 how to explain this game. It is a bit like Monoply but not all the way. You can probably get a better understaning about the game by reading this here.
In any case, I'm glad someone finally translated this game so I actually know what's going on. You can download the patch here.
I'm Cranking Them Out!
Mega Man Remastered
I found a Japanese website that specializes reproducing video game music, keeping it close to the original track, but enhancing it. Calling it remastered sounded good enough to me. There were a lot of Mega Man songs on the site (over 40) so I compiled 39 of them into one download. Listen to these with the volume cranked to the max or with headphones to get the most out of it.
Chrono Remastered
Eight tracks from one of my (and maybe your) all-time favorite games have been remastered and they've never sounded better! That's saying a lot when you consider the original score is pretty epic! This version of Battle 2 needs to be played at an Opera. Seriously.
SNES Remastered
Like Mega Man Remastered and Chrono Remastered. The SNES had one of the best audio chips for a video game system. Many gamers have a lot of soundtracks that came from this system.
SNES Remastered 2
Same deal with the first one. Koopa (the final battle music in Yoshi's Island) sounds like 500 levels of one bad mother...! Just download it.
Azell Arrange
Azell arranges video game music. She does a magnificent job of it, too! Some of the best arrangements I've ever heard. A few songs just cut off, but that's only flaw in an otherwise solid collection of tracks.
Azell Final Fantasy Arrange
Azell! Final Fantasy!! Arrange!!! Why are you still reading this stupid text?!
Full Moon
Nothing but Moon Themes from DuckTales, including one vocal track! I even tossed in a MIDI collection.
Chrono Fantasy
A collection of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy music from various Japanese fans.
The Red Wings
This UK-based band does a marvelous job pumping out rock versions of video game tunes. They've only done 12 songs and I've thrown them all into a single download. Check out their website here.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Mega Remixes: Finished for Now
I still plan to make more compilation albums. I've been wanting to do an all Magnet Man compilation album, an all Wood Man album, and an all Cut Man album along with some of my other favorite robot master's themes. I already found some nice art to tag the mp3s with.
Anyway, here's the last of the Mega Remixes albums:
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Falcon PUNCH!
Mega Man 5 Gets the Endless Treatment
If you haven't purchased Mega Man 9, you may not be aware of one of the extras the game has called Endless Challenge. The game thrusts you into random portions of the levels throughout the game and to clear each area, you have to get to the teleport capsule.
I haven't played MM9 yet, but I've read up on what sounds like a really cool concept. Thanks to Rock5easily, I've gotten a taste of what MM9's Endless Challenge is like. Rock 5 Endless does just what MM9's Endless Challenge mode does. Where you begin and will end up is completely random. You have all your weapons and special items to help you kill bosses and advance through the levels. However, there are no E-Tanks so the only way you can recover your energy is by killing bosses and picking up refills along the way.
Like MM9's Endless Challenge, Rock 5 Endless keeps track of how many levels you've cleared with a counter at the top right of the screen. The first time, I played, I cleared 40 stages before I was met with defeat from Crystal Man. The second time, I was able to clear 107 stages before I died. Word at the Rockman Perfect Memories forums is that it's easier than MM9's Endless Challenge. Some players there have cleared over 500 stages. Even with it being on the easy side, its pretty fun. I've provided a link with the ISP patch. Be sure to patch a Rockman 5 rom, not a Mega Man 5 rom. Click on the image in the link to download it. Enjoy.
Rock 5 Endless
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Delzhand Does Mega Man
Delzhand, a forumite on the Penny Arcade message boards has been working on a HD Mega Man game in XNA and made these sprites. He wanted to keep the feel and look of the 8-bit Mega Man sprite. I think he did pretty well. If the sprites look that good, I cannot wait to play the actual game.
Delzhand has a site you can check out here: Delzhand.com.
Get Equipped with Tae K
Everyone loves free stuff and Tae K is available as a Free download. Even if you aren't into rap, I highly recommend checking this one out. I was pleasantly surprised.
Download Taek
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
An Overlooked Mega Man Soundtrack
Battle & Chase may be one of the more obscure Mega Man titles, but it's still a fun game. For a Mario Kart knock of it was a pretty ambitious one. Winning races allowed you to get parts from the competition's carts and you could outfit your ride with multiple parts. This not only altered your cart on a performance level, it altered it cosmetically as well.
On top of the nice gameplay, Battle & Chase had a sweet soundtrack, comprised of nearly completely original tunes. My favorite songs are the various versions of Over the Top, Escape, Wind Carry My Words, Through the Air, Are You Gloomy, Chasers, but really, the whole score is quality stuff. Not a single remix has been made of from this soundtrack and that breaks my video-game-music-loving heart. Maybe someday someone will get hip to this awesome score and come out with some nice beats.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Mama Said Knock You Out
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
A Message to Mega Man Remixers
Mega Man 4 has a stellar soundtrack, and yet it you can almost count the number of remixes the music for that game has gotten on one hand. Dr. Cossack's music (both themes) easily ranks as some oft he best fortress music in the history of Mega Man. And where the heck are those dope remixes of Bright Man's stage?! Where is the love for Dark Man stage music in Mega Man 5? Split Mushroom from X4? I always loved his jam and not a single solitary remix. As much as I hated X6, I did dig that game's music. Commander Yammark and Blaze Heatnix deserve to have their themes remixed. No one has touched Mega Man: Battle & Chase music, though this could be due to the fact that the game has remained in Japan for almost 10 years and didn't come to the states until the Mega Man X Collection got released. Even the Battle Network games, hobby-based as they may be have some good tunage (well except for Battle Network 4. That one had only about two good themes).
Mega Man music offers so much to work with and I think it's time remixers start thinking outside of Mega Man 2 and 3.
Monday, September 29, 2008
September Duels
September Duels
Friday, September 26, 2008
Mega Man Makes Wall Street Journal
I'm serious. In the state America is in, seeing an article on Mega Man 9 and in the WSJ of all papers is great news.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Radical!
Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate is the end result of combined efforts of various remixers from OverClockedremix.org. The website I just mentioned should be more than enough to get you to download this album. I've heard the music in the original Radical Dreamers game and it sounds fantastic. If Yasunori Mitsuda, the composer of the Radical Dreamers music were to hear this remixed album, I'm sure he'd be quite impressed. Go ahead and give a listen.
Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate
Jack's In Trouble
Jack is known for his silly shenanigans against violent video games and overall annoying the gaming community. I bet if he'd sit down, shut up and played some video games, he'd have a lot of fun. Oh who am I kidding? There's a better chance of world peace breaking out before that will ever happen.
Along with his disbarment, Jack owes reimbursement Florida Bar fees of $43, 675.35. Snap.
Source
Well it took a while but it finally happened. Jack Thompson is OUTTA HEREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
I'm so happy.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
His Power Level Is Incredible!
First off, let me say that I love fighting games but when I pick up a DBZ fighter, I'm not looking for the next Soul Calibur or Virtua Figther. I'm just looking for a good DBZ experience that's respectful of the source material. Now that I've gotten that outta the way, I can continue.
I played the first Budokai Tenkaichi a few years ago. I admired the approach it took to emulate the DBZ style of fighting but more often than not, it's flaws and glitches cropped their ugly heads. Having only a single life bar really sucked when you were up against dudes that could blow up a planet. Some of the super buffed out fighters (Super Trunks, Broly, Bojack) wouldn't even flintch when you hit them and they could inturupt your combo string anytime because of it. A number of battles in the story mode were ridiculously har. The fight where you have to defeat Vegeta in his Great Ape form comes to mind. If you wanted to win, you had to spam Kamehameha attcks because melee attacks would just wind up getting you killed. It was for these reasons that I skipped the sequel. Besides, I had a lot of fun with Super Dragon Ball Z even if the character roster in that game didn't even come close to BT2's.
When I started practice mode to get a feel for the controls, I could tell that I'd be in for a more polished game than the first BT. The controls feel a lot more tighter and fluid. Even flying around feels a lot better, faster.
To avoid dragging this out into a string of lengthy paragraphs, I've decided to list the pros and cons out this game. I'll try to keep it brief but I'll elaborate on a few things.
Pros
- Tons of characters. Over 150 to be exact. This includes everone from DB, DBZ, and DBGT. Every single transformation is here, too. Even all the movie villains are here. I just wish we were able to get the DBZ version of Pan. GT pan is annoying to no end. Arale, from Dr. Slump, Akira Toriyama's first manga series is even playable and she's pretty tough.
- Customizing your figther. This has always been one of my favorite things about the console DBZ games. Dimps came up with the idea in the DBZ Budokai games, and Spike decided to keep running with it in the BT games. Smart move on their part. You can make your fighters that are already insanely powerful even stronger still.
- Improved graphics. They just keep finding a way to make these games look even better.
- Info on every character. There's a mode specifically made that give you the 411 on every fighter in the game. It was in the first BT but it's nice to see it back. With this mode, the game manages to do the impossible: Make Chi-Chi a likable person. She gives amusing commentary on everyone.
- No recycled music from the Budokai games! Thankfully they've decided to go with the music in BT. And what is sure to shut many fans of the original Japanese DBZ version up, the option for Japanese voices is there.
- A few stupidly hard fights in Dragon History mode. Don't bother trying to use Melee attacks against Perfect Cell after he's "died" and then powered up. Spam him with beam attacks and pray that you win.
- Still not crazy about the behind-the-fighter view.
- Rush attacks can get annoying since they home in on you.
- Some tournaments are only open at certains times in the game.
The good outweighs the bad. For $20 I got a sweet DBZ experience and I honestly believe this is one the best DBZ games out there.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Rockman Kenk
Everyone and their grandmother has hacked Mega Man 2. As much as I love Mega Man 2 hacks, it sure would be nice to see some hacks of the other Mega Man games. There aren't too many hacks of the original Mega Man but of the few I've played, I find Rockman Kenk to be the best of the bunch.Rockman Kenk was released in honor of Mega Man 9. The game is a modified version of Rockman Kai and is a lot more polished to boot. Having spent the last few hours playing the game (I'm at Dr. Wily's fortress as I type this), I can assure you that Rockman Kenk is a quality hack. Aside from the overdone falling segments in Bomb Man's stage, the levels pack excellent design. One of the primary annoyances of Mega Man hacks is the cheap hits from enemies to serve as a challenge, when in reality, all it really does is frustrate the player. Rockman No Constancy and Rockman Deus Ex Machina are fine hacks, but even those are guilty of doing just that. Rockman Kenk wisely avoids this. For this reason, Rockman Kenk may even be better than the original game that it's based off of. The game is still pretty challenging but not to the point of being unfair.All of the bosses have different weakness and due to some floor rearrangement, boss fights also play out in a different maner. If you can't play Mega Man 9 (like me. I don't have a Wii or any next gen system) or you're just looking for another Mega Man game to play, Rockman Kenk is highly recommended. Just make sure you patch a Rockman rom, not a Mega Man rom.
Rockman Kenk
Monday, September 22, 2008
Pretty Fly For a Thai Guy
It would seem that the Bad Dudes really, really dig Sagat's theme because they've put out an album titled, Thai Guy and it contains nothing but Sagat remixes. 8 tracks, 2 bonus tracks with nothing but Sagat goodness. I've got it playing right now, and let me tell you, this is one sexy album. Most of the tracks tend to be on the soothing side, but there's some rock tracks in there for those that like to get up and move around. No matter how you slice it, this is an amazing album. And it's FREE!
Download Thai Guy
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Mega Man 9 Soundtrack Reviewed
Every Mega Man fan across the globe has been salivating to hear what the rest of the music in MM9 will sound like since the first footage was shown back in July, which featured music from from two of the robot master's stages. The clip was short but it was more than enough to wet appetites. Having heard the entire score myself more than once, I can tell you that the music is pretty good but it isn't perfect and I'll get to those imperfections in a bit.
As you'd expect, MM9's soundtrack sounds like it belongs in an NES game, which is perfectly fine. I mean, MM9 looks like an NES game and anyone that's a fan of Mega Man loves NES Mega Man music. The soundtrack is a wonderful refresher of what can be done with 8-bit audio. Tornado Man's theme is great. One of my favorites but it's overshadowed by Concrete Man's theme. Concrete Man's theme is catchy, fast paced, but not too complicated to the point where it isn't enjoyable. Last week, I had that song playing on repeat for over 20 minutes. The song is that good. Other stand out tracks among the robot master themes are Galaxy Man, Hornet Man, and Plug Man. This isn't to say the other robot masters don't have good themes, but aren't on the same level as the aforementioned themes.
The boss music, while not as complex as boss music in other Mega Man games, actually sounds kinda sinister and that's what I like about it. MM7-8 lacked this quality when it came to regular boss music, so it's nice to see it return in MM9's soundtrack. My favorite Wily themes in MM9 come from Dr. Wily Stage 1, and Dr. Wily Stage 2. Stage 1, "Flash in the Dark" reminds me of Dr. Wily Stage 1 in Mega Man 2 while Stage 2, "We're the Robots" reminds me for Dr. Wily Stage 2 from Mega Man 3 when it gets to 1:11 in the song. Both these tracks have a dark tone to them, which is a very good thing. At times I think we can get too caught up in Mega Man music being catchy that we forget that Mega Man music is supposed to be all over the place, including dark, moody themes.
Now for the bad. A number of tracks are straight out of Mega Man 2. Game Over, Dr. Wily UFO, Dr. Wily Castle, Get a Weapon, Stage Clear, Menu, Game Start, all from MM2. Mega Man 2 is a great game, with great music, but I don't believe that great Mega Man music begins and ends with MM2. I know that Capcom wanted to make MM9 closer to MM2, but the fact that eight tracks are ripped straight from that game just wreaks of laziness. Compared to the rest of the music in MM9, they stick out like sore thumbs. If we get a Mega Man 10, I'm hoping Capcom's music department will bring us all new tracks.
Reused music aside, the Mega Man 9 soundtrack is pretty sweet. You'll want it if you're a Mega Man for or love the sound of 8-bit music, or just love video game music in any shape or form. If we get Mega Man X9, who thinks we'll get music that sounds like the SNES X games?
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Castle Crashers Music
Castle Crashers mp3 tracks
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
More 8-bit Mega Man 8 Screens
I'm not for certain if they are going with this stage select screen or not, but I've always been a fan of Mega Man's mug being in the center a la Mega Man 3. Bonus points if they use this stage select screen AND have Mega Man look at the selected robot master.
Even the "You got
The weapon screen. You may not think it's anything special, but note the E-Tank in the lower right corner of the screen. We're getting E-Tanks in this game! Woo-hoo! Now while MM8 was doable without E-Tanks the some parts of the game were made more difficult without them. Also, the Mega Ball is going to be in the game, indicated by the "R. Ball" weapon in the screen.
I've been wondering how Frost Man's stage would turn out in this game. Two parts of the level are devoted to riding on a snowboard while being told to "JUMP, JUMP! SLIDE, SLIDE!" at just the right moments. Well, I don't know if we'll actually be hearing those words, but it would seem that the snowboarding segments are definitely in.
I don't know a lick of Japanese so I haven't been poking around the official site as of late. I'd like to thank Vixy from Rockman Perfect Memories for posting this info up on the Rockman PM message boards.