video games

Tennis in Hell: The Virtual Boy is 15 Years Old

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Long before the August 14th, 1995 release of the Virtual Boy, I was excited to get my hands on one. Up until this point, Nintendo had never let me down. I had read all the preview coverage about the system and even entered a contest from a local newspaper that was giving one away. If that didn’t pan out, I was going to buy the Virtual Boy the moment I had saved up enough money for it.

Last week was the Virtual Boy’s 15th anniversary and I still don’t own one. I’ve had opportunities in recent memory to pick up up after the fact, but I’ve passed on it every time. Even if I did pick one up, it would be more for the humour in it than anything. The fall of the Virtual Boy is well documented, so instead of looking at the big picture, I wanted to talk about my personal experiences with one of the worst video game platforms of all-time.

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Street Fighter Concepts That Made Me a Better Basketball Player – Part 4: Exploiting Weaknesses

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This is an on-going series where I discuss the thinking involved in Street Fighter that I’ve applied to basketball. If you want to see earlier entries in the series, hit the link: Part 1: Spacing, Part 2: Punishing Mistakes, Part 3: Resource Management

Exploitation of Weaknesses

When I play the computer in Street Fighter IV as Akuma, regardless of difficulty, I can almost always land a Raging Demon. I don’t know what the guys at Capcom did about the AI, but 99% of the time when I input that command, the computer just stands there and eats it. Human opponents in general are tougher to fool, but virtually everyone has weaknesses of some sort. When I play an opponent, one of the very first things I check is my opponent’s ability to block a cross-up. It’s a tactic that most casual players don’t understand and won’t figure out how to counteract it within the span of one match. When I notice that my opponent doesn’t have an answer for that, or any other tactic that I throw at them, I will repeatedly use that tactic until I win or until my opponent finds an answer.

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Early Impressions on Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night

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As someone with no affinity towards the Castlevania series, picking up Castlevania Encore: Puzzle of the Night seems like a weird move. Up until I played it, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to regret the discounted price I paid for it.

While I haven’t played enough to pass a final judgment on it, I’m really digging this so far.

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In Third Person Passes 200 Posts: Here’s 5 You May Have Missed

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200 posts is a fairly big milestone for a blog. I don’t have the stats to back this up, but I’m pretty sure the majority of blogs get abandoned after a handful of posts. I love In Third Person, and I think creating 200 posts by myself in just over 13 months says a lot about my love of games and my commitment to this site.

During that time though, I also switched platforms from Blogger to WordPress. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that the majority of my Blogger readership didn’t make the jump to WordPress and that my WordPress following never dug into the older Blogger posts. If you don’t fit into either use-case, then 200 blog posts is a lot of content to catch up on.

If you’re looking to go back through the In Third Person catalogue, this 201st post highlights 5 posts you may have missed.

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Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition Can Roll Off a Cliff

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The first Super Monkey Ball caught everyone by surprise when it was ported to the Gamecube from the arcade. This evolution of Marble Madness was simple to learn, hard to master and featured a fun to play campaign mode and mini games. Thanks to the success of that first game, Super Monkey Ball has grown into a profitable franchise for Sega. However, the steady flow of sales has not led to a steady improvement in quality. In fact, I would go as far as saying that none of the Monkey Ball games since the original have surpassed the quality of the first. Some of the entries in the series are flat-out bad.

Prior to my impulsive purchase of Sakura Edition on the iPad, I had been burned twice by Super Monkey Ball sequels. I caved on the iPad version because I was still starved for new iPad-specific games and it was on sale for $5. Is this the game that brings the series back into top form?
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In Defense of Fighting Games

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I was planning on writing a whole post about how the entirety of Alexander Hinkley’s “Why Fighting Games Suck” post is terrible due to his ignorance and poor arguments supported with incorrect facts, but the Internet has done that for me in the comments section. Thank you, Internet.

Review – BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

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If it weren’t for news of a thorough tutorial mode being included in the sequel to BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, I wouldn’t have picked up Continuum Shift. As much as this may look like a Street Fighter style game, it plays completely different and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

A year later, it’s back with a few new characters, new stages, balance tweaks and a great tutorial mode, which I’ve already written about in great detail. However, is there enough here for new players and seasoned BlazBlue veterans alike to continue the fight?

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To Infinity and Beyond? BioShock Infinite Announced

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BioShock 2 was a real letdown to me. I’ve never played the game, but everything I have seen and heard about it has completely turned me off. The game’s main selling point was that it was a return to Rapture, but the first game ends in a way that doesn’t give you a reason to go back. The game lets you play as the Big Daddy, but what made Big Daddies cool were the fact that you had to fight them, not be them. The game featured multiplayer, even though multiplayer wouldn’t have fit within the context of the BioShock universe. I understand that the video game industry is a business like movies and music, but it seemed like all the creative in the first game was funneled out by business teams that wanted a quick sequel that would improve on the predecessor through lots of focus testing and marketing dollars. Ugh.

BioShock Infinite was just announced today and it’s coming from Irrational Games, the creators of the original. This post won’t be a thorough preview or a breakdown of the trailer. There are places that will do a much better job of that than I. The following are just a few gut feelings about what I know as of now.

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Feeling Left Out: StarCraft II

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StarCraft II is without question, the hottest game on the planet right now. It’s arguably the biggest game of 2010. Everywhere gaming website I go to, every message board I visit and every video game podcast I listen to is talking about it. Even all of my coworkers are talking about their forays into the campaign and multiplayer modes.

Though I’ve heard and read enough about StarCraft II to hold up a decent conversation about the game, I kind of feel left out. You see, I’ve never played StarCraft II before. Or the original one. I must confess that, I haven’t even played an RTS since before the original Starcraft came out.
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Girlfriend Gaming: Dance on Broadway Review

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Dance on Broadway is a very interesting game. When Ubisoft scored huge with Just Dance, there was no question that they would capitalize on that success. What I didn’t see happening though, was Ubisoft creating a dancing game based on Broadway musicals. I’m not sure if there are enough aspiring Broadway dancers that want to live out their Hairspray dreams through a Wii game to justify this game’s existence.

Even my girlfriend, who just so happens to be a fan of Just Dance and musicals, was reluctant to pick this up. With only 20 songs on the disc, it’s not easy to justify picking this up at regular price. Thanks to a Wal-Mart sale that took 50% off the regular price, she now owns it and we’ve strutted and shimmied our way through a number of show tunes. I haven’t played through every song, but I think I’ve played enough to say if this one deserves a standing ovation or whether it should exit stage left.

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