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Final Fantasy VII and How Nostalgia Colors Opinions

A few days ago I rhapsodized about A Boy and His Blob, only to have Bob Mackey provide me with a reality check. The game had its flaws. He's right! This morning I read IGN's roundtable discussion on Final Fantasy VII, which set out to determine if the game is overrated.

I don't think FFVII could have possibly come at a better time in order to enjoy canonical status today. A huge portion of today's video game journalists were probably ten to fifteen when the game was released. I vividly remember seeing the game's trailers aired during ABC's TGIFriday. Even my parents were impressed.

Posted Mar 09 2009, 08:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: a boy and his blob, cole stryker, final fantast vii, nostalgia, bob mackey, squaresoft

A Boy and His Blob Hates You

I'm afraid I'm going to have to be the lone hater when it comes to the recently-announced Wii-make of the NES "classic," A Boy and His Blob. Mainly because the original game was sort of... terrible. Don't get me wrong, it had a unique premise and quite a few iconic features that make it a memorable game to this day, but so did Kid Icarus. And we all know about Kid Icarus.

I'd like to say that the NES A Boy and His Blob is just a tragic example of a game that didn't age well, but I found it pretty intolerable back before my age entered the double-digits. To me, the game had this unfriendly, 80s PC game design sense that showed utter contempt for anyone brave enough to dare explore its world. And while the different forms of The Blob were interesting to mess around with, the limited amount of transformations available in the game made necessary experimentation a frustrating experience.

To be fair, I'm sure the Wii-make will make ABaHB much more playable, though I still don't understand the appeal outside of misguided nostalgia. Hell, even if you're interested in the shape-changing gimmick, it's been done much better in the 20 years since A Boy and His Blob traumatized little kids like me. Since the official party pooping cannot start until I've distributed some actual party poop, I offer this video playthrough of the original A Boy and His Blob as evidence that all of your childhood memories are wrong--or right, in my case.

Video after the cut.

Posted Mar 04 2009, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: wii, a boy and his blob, nostalgia, remakes, bob mackey

A Boy and His Blob Wiimake?

Imminent Nostalgia Overload Warning!

A Boy and His Blob is being remade for the Wii, published by Way Forward Technologies, according to Wikipedia. Those jerks at Nintendo Power only offer a super pixellated set of screenshots, but it's enough to make my heart soar.

Your gelatinous sidekick, Blobert, can morph into different useful items when you feed him jelly beans. What's not to like? For all you youngins (and I mean that like the guys on HBO's The Wire say it, not like a redneck mother) who haven't played the original, here's a video to fill you in on what you've missed:

Posted Mar 03 2009, 06:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: a boy and his blob, cole stryker, nintendo power, nostalgia, way forward technologies

Top Ten Most Terrifying Enemies and Then Five More

I’ve got to hand it to Cracked, this is an almost perfect list of pants-wetting aggressors from videogames across the ages. Wallmasters, poison head crabs, Baron von Blubba, and Sinistar have all caused seriously tense moments for me in addition to all sounding like euphemisms for incurable STDs. That said, there are a handful of noticeable omissions from this list. 61 Frames Per Second, being the civil minded outlet it is, brings you five other baddies.

Posted May 15 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, metroid, final fantasy, cracked, top ten, silent hill, prince of persia, a boy and his blob

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.