akumie wrote:
I am a bit confused since I always though that ChuChu Rocket and Channel Sweeper where both vb homebrew games
If not then I need to change my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ordTjzfduDk LOL
I use a DV camera and put it right up to the VB and film it. With the shutter speed at 1/50 the picture is good, only problem is that line that goes through the picture every now and then, but at any other speed the screen goes black instead so it’s a small price to pay. All of the homebrew games were played on a Flashboy, except VUE Snake, in which case took screenshots from an emulator.
Nice that you liked the video, and thanks for commenting.
Some afterthoughts:
1.
I forgot to film footage for VUE Snake, as you saw, so I grabbed some screens via Red Dragon, I finally found out the key to grab a screen was “P”, probably for Print…
I really do like the Double Mode, it’s awesome and really clever use of the Virtual Boy’s dual D-pads.
2.
I forgot to write a part in the script for Super Bounce! I filmed it, but forgot up until after I was done with the video that I hadn’t featured it. Here’s my thoughts: The graphical glitches are pretty severe at times but the basic game is enjoyable. But that sound effect of weeee-oooo when going up and down gets annoying fast, makes me turn off the sound. And levels would be nice rather than an infinite stage.
But as usual it’s in progress so it’s cool. I like the concept, so keep at it.
3.
I didn’t rank the games in the video, but here are the ones
that are my favorites to play, in no particular order.
Castle of Doom, GameHero, Mario Kart Virtual Cup and VUE Snake.
Blox, Blox 2 and Soviet Union 2011 are really solid, but the genres are not for me personally.
The games with most potential are Capitan Sevilla, Mario VB and VB Racing.
Remember, only my opinions!
Thanks again and there’s one more video to go, a summary of the Virtual Boy and it’s games, where I’ll also rank all the official games in order, and give out “awards” to them in different categories. Don’t expect it very soon though, my next most immediate project is playing through Megaman 1-6 and making videos about that 🙂
Ok so I’m on vacation right now and my girlfriend just left me so I’ve been distracted, but I plan to finish the homebrew video this weekend, for trulies. I got fed up with Adobe Premiere rendering previews for 10 minutes just to play AUDIO, so I said fuck it and I’m now going to edit it at work, in Avid. It’ll be interesting. Anyway I’m back home this friday so I’ll work on it this weekend.
Not sure if anyone cares(until a link is presented), but there it is.
Here’s my story:
I learnt of the Virtual Boy’s existence in the mid-2000s. I got really interesting the VB because it was Nintendo’s only mistake, only failure. I grew up on NES and Gameboy and I never knew they made a console/handheld that failed. Additionally the red/black headset of the VB always looked very cool, and I still think that. Virtual Reality was kind of a dream for anyone who grew up in the 90s, and the idea of looking into this thing and entering another world was really enticing. I finally ordered one off Ebay in 2007, and got Red Alarm, V-Tetris, Teleroboxer, Golf and Wario Land with it. I had seen screenshots of some games, so I knew somewhat what to expect, but I thought the image of the game would cover my entire field of vision, like I would have to look way out to see the edges of the screen, like I would look into a room in reality. Finding out that you just look at a ‘screen’ right in front of you was a small dissappoinment at first, but still I liked the games right off the bat. Wario Land, V-Tetris and Red Alarm most of all. I liked putting my head into the VB and it still did feel like entering another world… I took it to school the next day and it made a bit of a splash there too, most people were quite intrigued even if some said they got dizzy. One guy in class even used it to do a report on 😛
I sold this Virtual Boy before I moved to another town, because I feared it would break in the move anyway (I underestimated it’s durability, still do I think). After a while at the new place, I bought another one, and this time tracked down some more games. Due to financial troubles I sold that one too after 6 months or so, but I kept the games at first, of which I had 12. Later on I had to sell the games too =/.
Then 2 years ago I bought my third one, and this time I ‘swore’ to keep it. I was itching to play Wario Land again, and had since last time learned of the Flashboy. I found one on ebay after losing the first bidding war, and it was really, really exciting to play the rest of the library. I was most exicted to play Insmouse no Yakata since I thought a FPS was a dream fit for VB. I found it to be more of a slow survival horror game, but after a short while I appreciated it for what it was, and enjoyed that.
I played VB a lot for a while, managed to beat Jack Bros, Red Alarm(with cheats..), Panic Bomber and Wario Land. With Wario Land I had a loong session playing the final boss, I was really lucky my batteries didn’t wear out! I got really really frustrated, to the point that I thought it was impossible, it was then I continued to play it just to demonstrate to myself the depth of it’s impossibleness.. then I got better at it, once I got some distance so to speak, and did finally beat him! Unfortunately I had used 6 continues, so no good ending for me 😛
I then started making reviews of VB games, because I thought they deserve to be viewed in a reasonable light, not just “it’s a Virtual Boy game, hurts your eyes and sux becuz red and black”. As you know.
My VB now has the line-issue, but I will get help from TheForce81 one of these days!
I hope for the future to yield many more nice homebrew games and for more unreleased games of the past to crawl out from under stones and greedy beta-cart-owners, because that would be awesome, if they’re half as good as Bound High!
Lester! I’m going to try to counter your defenses of awful video games. Excuse me if I come across as arrogant or so,
I’m not trying to be as much as just expressing my opinion, and I know my opinion isn’t more “true” than yours.
4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness
i love ET. it puts all the important aspects of the movie into an incredibly tiny package. the game is challenging, but yet easy to beat. the only annoying thing are the pitfalls everywhere, which can be avoided once you learn the maps. really, i don’t see what the bid deal is.
The important aspects of running away from the authorities and getting to the spaceship are the only similarities to the movie, the rest you are imagining. I don’t think ET never assembled a telephone in the movie, and he didn’t fall into any pits and extended his neck to fly out. (I can be wrong on this, I haven’t seen the movie in years) How you can call an annoying game challenging is interesting to me…
Dragon’s Lair Arcade
Unplayable. A guessing game.
you have to remember when it was released that it attempted to do something that had not been done before. its a game of memorization. are you saying memorization isn’t a valid gaming tool? not liking the game mechanics doesn’t make it unplayable. if it was so unplayable i hardly feel that it would have been ported to so many systems (dos, mac, cd-rom, dvd, 3d0, gbc, ps3, wii, dsi, android, etc).
I don’t think the excuse of “they were trying something new
and bold” excuses a bad game. I’d say memorization is not
in fact a valid gaming tool except for like the card minigame in Super Mario 3. Dragon’s Lair is unplayable for me too, except for the first screen there’s no clues as to what to do, unlike the sequel. It feels very very random.
Now trial and error is a valid gaming tool, but did they really have to make it this annoying? 😛
And it’s been ported to so many systems because it’s part of gaming history, and the cartoon graphics still enthrall people. Gameplay is not
at the forefront at least.
Dragon’s Lair (NES)
Awfull game and hard as possible, I couldn’t get past the first screen.
its a fairly challenging game but its not horribly bad. i wouldn’t say its awful by any means. its not cheetahmen II for example.
Now this game IS horrible. I think Cheetahmen II is a lot better, I mean Cheetahmen doesn’t have one hit kills, Cheetahmen doesn’t have as slow controls…
Dragon’s Lair on NES could have been decent if the controls
weren’t so bad. And again, challenging is not quite the word I would choose.
Adventure (Atari 2600)
Can’t get a more boring of an adventure than this.
what are you comparing it to? adventure is a classic example of a simple adventure game done right. its so extremely basic yet it offers weapons, hidden objects, puzzles, enemies, and even the 1st easter egg.
there is even a great homebrew sequel of it for the 5200.
Here I agree with you Lester, this was made in 1980 and
they did what they could. You have to use your imagination
a fair bit. And it’s certainly not as broken/annoying as ET
or Dragon’s Lair. I suppose it’s a bit boring, but to each
is own, or something.
Milon’s Secret Castle (NES)
Way too difficult and play control needs improvement.
milon’s secret castle is full of secrets. the core of the gameplay is taking the time to discover secrets. the rest is understanding where to go next. all-in-all it isn’t an extremely long game, perhaps you should give it another play? its like most games of that era, they weren’t polished multi-million dollar games made by teams of 200 with credits that scroll for 15 minutes. you have to give them some leeway for their minor flaws.
Here I also kind of agree. If you play Milon with just you
and the controller, it’s a bad game. But if you play with a strategy guide, it’s a good game. Now they shouldn’t force
you to use one like they did with basing everything around
secrets, but if you do have one it’s a good game.
Rambo (NES)
Zelda 2 rip off.
ok, so character sprites and movements resemble zelda II. but how can you call it a zelda 2 rip off? it is nothing like zelda 2. its just another side scrolling adventure game. you could list any number of games with similar styles of play and call them zelda 2 ripoffs by those standards. with that said, i rather enjoy rambo. i own it on cart and have beat it countless times over the years. it isn’t the best rambo title ever released but its still a great adventure game with plenty of exploration.
Except the fact that Rambo doesn’t have an overworld, I do think it qualifyes as a Zelda II ripoff, like Sony All-stars qualifies as a Smash Bros ripoff, even though they do some thing different. The experience system, the dark areas needing a lantern, the numbers when you kill enemies(exp system at work) And no it’s not just another sidesrolling adventure game. It’s not like Contra, not like Rush n Attack, not like Astyanax, not like Megaman, etc.
Now, I’d like to add one game for you to defend:
Superman 64. It would be interesting! Also, what games don’t you like? Or was that in this thread already..?
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Really, Protoman85? After all those reviews, no love for the Virtual Boy? 🙁
Dude, there’s a lot of consoles out there, most of them have more than 22 games too. I do love the Virtual Boy, but being completely honest, it has to rank out of the top 5.
Consoles I’d rank the Virtual Boy above:
Sega Master System
Sega CD
Sega 32X
TurboGrafx-16
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Jaguar
Atari XEGS
Apple/Bandai Pippin
Philips CD-i
3DO
Xbox
Playstation Vita
Nintendo 64DD
Colecovision
Intellivision
Commodore 64
Bally Astrocade
Fairchild Channel F
Odyssey
Odyssey 2
