Posts Tagged ‘Game Boy’

17 results.
Apr11
robot

Robocop

by Gazunta on April 11, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Robocop

Part man, part machine, all cop that has to move his arm in awkward 45 degree increments because that’s how 8-way joysticks worked back then. What made it even worse was that when you aimed up and to the right or left Robocop would keep moving in that direction too so you’d end up walking directly into the line of enemy fire. Just another day in the life for video gaming’s greatest cyborg.

The arcade version of this is my favourite of them all, simply because they stuck to the home console design but didn’t have any of the C64 or Amiga’s technical limitations. Big beefy sprites and an awesome looking ED-209 to contend with plus lots of sampled speed which was a big deal back in the day of course.

The C64 version had horrible bugs which meant one level was a garbled mess, so much for quality assurance back then.

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Mar28
gazunta

Battletoads

by Gazunta on March 28, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Battletoads

I couldn’t decide which comic to do so I did both! Yay who needs sleep?

OK I have to admit not having played Battletoads much, it always seemed to hard for me and I thought it was a weird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip off. But it seems kind of fun!

And for some reason I own a Battletoads toy. Why did I buy this back in the day? I mean LOOK AT THIS THING:

I had way too much disposable cash when I was a kid.

Did you know there was an Arcade version of Battletoads? And it was published by Electronic Arts? Neither did I! That was weird. Battletoads was a weird franchise. I mean what other game had a cross over with Double Dragon for no apparent reason.

Oh by the way YES I know Battletoads came out in 1991 not 1992 but there were so many versions of the game that came out between 1991 and 1993 that I think I can get away with it in 2012 :)

Update: I’ve since been notified that the toy is not a Battletoads toy and is, in fact, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy. WHOOPS!

└ Tags: , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Feb22
gazunta

Nebulus

by Gazunta on February 22, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Nebulus

You’re never really given a reason why you’re meant to be destroying all these buildings, perhaps you’ve just been brainwashed so much by the cult leaders that it really doesn’t matter to you.

I really like this game a lot. Once you look past the technical wonder of the rotating tower – it spins around in a manner that just shouldn’t be possible on the 8-bits – there’s a solid and inventive platform game to be discovered. The weird little green thing proves himself an adept character, jumping around the place and shooting ping pong balls at random weird shapes as he makes his way to the top. Hidden short cuts, secret elevators and multiple paths literally around the corner make each level a joy to explore.

Of course most of my time was spent with the C64 version, which I thought was just lovely with all the special effects in the regular levels and the bonus shoot ‘em up stages, but the Amiga version had its own charm and also for some strange reason blue domes on note of the buildings that I used here in the comic.

Did you know there was a GameBoy version? Neither did I until I took it upon myself to play every GameBoy game EVER one day. It was called Tower Toppler which I guess is amore literal but less silly name. It was also pretty good but man the GameBoy was not a pretty system.

└ Tags: , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Feb08
gazunta

NBA Jam

by Gazunta on February 8, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
NBA Jam

I used to annoy the local arcade with this game. Sure, people liked playing the basketball bit, but I knew about the hidden Battlezone-esque 3D tank game that was freely accessible if you held down some stick and button combination during attract mode. It was a bit crap but it was FREE and in the arcade you really can’t beat that can you.

OK anyway NBA Jam was a pretty great game, especially when you were playing with other people. The addition of the secret real world characters to the already cool roster – this was back when basketball was cool – was a fun way to keep the interest up. It was pretty obvious that the computer was cheating to hell and back in an effort to keep the games close, but it didn’t really matter that much.

The SNES version was a really great conversion, no two ways about it. The speech made a lot of the difference and the Mode 7-style effect for the basketball court just felt polished and made it a confident home conversion.

I didn’t play much of the later NBA Jam games, but for a while there this was a real cool way to kill a few hours.

└ Tags: , , , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Jan04
gazunta

Hudson Hawk

by Gazunta on January 4, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Hudson Hawk

Now, you can say whatever you like about the movie, I only saw it once and it seemed kinda dumb and it had that horrible hell beast Sandra Bernhard in it, and isn’t it good that we live in a world without her in it now, but I will not hear anyone disparage the Hudson Hawk video game.

It was a cute, colourful bouncy platformer that was a lot better than it otherwise should have been. You played as Hudson and you had to steal stuff, and avoid traps – it was basically a stealth platformer with the occasional funny bit where you threw balls to distract guard dogs. Yeah, it wasn’t going to set the world on fire but it was a game i totally didn’t regret buying at the time, not that I ever finished the darn thing.

AND it came with a Hudson Hawk hat in the box, that was neat.

└ Tags: , , , ,
2 Comments

Related Comics ¬

Nov16
gazunta

Bubble Bobble

by Gazunta on November 16, 2011 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Bubble Bobble

BUBBLE BOBBLE. There isn’t anything you’re doing that’s more important than playing some Bubble Bobble,right now.

This was an absolute gem of a game from top to bottom. The cute graphics, the fun feeling of movement, the simple but depp mechanic of blowing bubbles, trapping enemies in bubbles and then popping them to get FRUIT.

Every game should have fruit as a collectable in it.

Plus you could use the bubbles as platforms, which was a cool trick, AND you could collect letters that made up the word E X T E N D. That is cool. More video games should have that in it. AND it has secret warps and bubbles that make you go on water rides.

It was converted to all sorts of things, but it was weird how the conversions got worse as time went on. The C64 and Amiga versions were just about perfect and are still to this day the best version. A little while ago there was a DS version and it was PANTS. How does that make sense?

Go play Bubble Bobble.

 

 

└ Tags: , , , , , ,
1 Comment

Related Comics ¬

Nov09
gazunta

Elevator Action

by Gazunta on November 9, 2011 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Elevator Action

Hey! It’s the 100th Blow The Cartridge comic. That’s a good thing! Play some Commodore 64 to celebrate.

Elevator Action was the first arcade game I almost bought, it was looking lost and lonely at a second hand store for $250 and I had just gotten $250 that morning for some freelance work that took six months to get paid for. Could I blow it all on a game that I already owned a decent enough version on the Game Boy of?

It turns out I could,  and then chicken out just as I was handing the cash over since I realised I had no way of getting it home.

I like this game a bit, but man is it slow. I mean, it stars elevators for crying out loud, they’re not exactly known for their velocity.

└ Tags: ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Nov02

Cool Spot

by Gazunta on November 2, 2011 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Cool Spot

Cool Spot! He may have just been a red dot to you, but he was the beginning of a new generation of games – ones that combined slick production values with the slimy world of advertising. I mean we paid actual cash money to watch a four hour advertisement for sugar water. How genius is that!

I liked this game enough when it came out, though it did bug me how large the main sprite was which meant a lot of the platforming was harder than it needed to be. No doubt some advertisement person balked at the idea of the Cool Spot being just a little red dot and insisted it take up, like, the whole screen, just like on TV. It ended up getting converted around the place, including the Amiga which was desperate for console style platformers towards the end of its commercial life.

Oh, and it was one of the earlier games by Dave Perry and Tommy Tallarico, so there you go trivia fans! GORGE ON MY KNOWLEDGE BUFFET.

└ Tags: , , , , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Oct19

Batman

by Gazunta on October 19, 2011 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Batman

OK so this is a bit of a cheat, but all this Arkham City talk this week has made me crave playing some old Batman games. Don’t you think it’s interesting how there’s never really been a bad Batman videogame, while most other superheroes have at least one giant Kryptonite-infused turd of a game to their name? I think it’s interesting, but I guess that explains why I don’t get out much.

My favourite Batman games are an equal tie between the 1988 Ocean Batman game on the C64, and the Amiga version of the 1989 Batman movie. The 1988 game was an original arcade adventure game of the era, with you (as Batman) exploring the Batcave and Gotham City collecting items, fighting bad guys and generally wondering why he couldn’t drive the Batmobile. One of its key graphical hooks was that it presented each room you went into as a separate comic panel that was laid on top of each other. It was a cool effect.

But hey speaking of the Batmobile, you got to drive that damn thing crazy fast on the Amiga. The C64 version of the 1989 movie game had side-scrolling Batmobile and Batwing sections, but the Amiga version presented those levels as a full on racing game that looked amaaaaaaazing. It was the basis for the Mega CD Batman game sections which also looked cool.

I remember liking the Sunsoft Batman game on the Game Boy, too.

└ Tags: , , , , ,
  Comment

Related Comics ¬

Aug28
meh

Paperboy

by Gazunta on August 28, 2011 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics
Paperboy

Again, a game from an age where any regular daytime activity could be turned into a video game and nobody looked at you weird or nothing.

I can’t say I was ever really in love with this game, but as an artifact of the era it’s quite interesting. And holy cow look at how many machines it was ported to! That’s got to be a record, surely? Maybe Robocod has it beat…

I really feel bad for the artists on that game having to draw everything at that weird forced perspective angle. Ick. This is one of the few classic games where I think a first person perspective would be better.

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

Related Comics ¬

  • Page 1 of 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • »
Blow The Cartridge #1 Available Now! Blow The Cartridge #1 Available Now!