Crazy Console Collection! – Pt 1

Ok, to start off I’m bidding (on eBay) on a Master System MKI with built in game “Super Hang-On” and one controller, hopefully I can get it for under £5. I already have the Sonic 2 and Sonic Chaos cartridges which have been in my possession for nearly 11 years now, perhaps more, without any playtime whatsoever in that time, so it should be fun to play them again.

I also bid on and won the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt multicart for the NES, a copy of Sonic 1 for the Mega Drive (which is in undoubtedly better condition than my own copy), and a copy of Mega Games II (featuring Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and The Revenge of Shinobi) also for my Mega Drive, a game which upon lending it to an ex-best friend, I never saw again.

It should also be noted that I dont actually have a NES to play Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt on yet, also now that I have a NES cart, its given me some incentive to buy one, that and a Zapper *imitates shooting sounds*

EDIT: So I didn’t get the Master System MK1 (pictured above), but I did manage to get a Master System II, which looks a whole lot better

The Mother of Bad Blog Titles

I’ll apologise straight off for the lame blog title, and then I’ll get to the point. At the moment, I am playing through a Gameboy Advance game known as Mother 3. It is the third installment in a series of RPG’s which go back as far as, well, Mother 1 for the Famicom (NES). So far the only one of these games to be released outside of Japan is Mother 2 for the SNES, albeit under the title of Earthbound (One of my favourite games alongside Grim Fandango).

Anyway, so Mother 3 came out in Japan last April (I’m playing it in Japanese) and, immediately before its release, it was voted the Most Wanted Game in Japan according to Famitsu (the Japanese Video Game Magazine). Ever since the game came out (perhaps even since the scrapped EB64), fans have been pleading with Nintendo to give the game a global release. Personally, I think its funny that for a series of games that draws so heavily from western culture, they just wont let us have it.

Onto the actual game however. Mother 3 is set on Nowhere Island, which becomes invaded by the Pig Mask Army, named after its creator Porky, also known as Pokey from Earthbound. Basically, the army invades and starts performing experiments on the plants and animals, and they also introduce new technology and infrastructure to the island, which is largely rural. The story unfolds over 8 chapters which follow the lives of a few of the islands inhabitants, in particular, a boy by the name of Lucas. Unlike the previous games, some of these “chapters” put different characters under your fingertips, into events and situations which sometimes overlap with other roles you play as. As the game progresses, the island changes from a largely rural society, to a modern, high-tech, urban community.

The game plays like most RPG’s, you fight enemies (which appear as actual sprites on-screen so unlike say, Pokemon, its less annoying), you level up. A word on the enemies, unlike regular RPG’s, the enemies found in the Mother games are largely off-the-wall, for example, after battling my way through an attic, I reach the end, only to be attacked by a double bass. Anyway, also present in Mother 3 is a music-combo system. Each enemy has it’s own battle music, and during battle the player can press the A button in time with the battle theme and score more hits. The game also retains the rolling HP/PP odometers from the previous game, enabling the player to heal before the counter rolls to 0. The player also has the ability to run, to smash breakable objects and stun enemies.

“Strange, Funny and Heartrending”

The game’s slogan, which I think sums up the game pretty well as Mother 3’s plot involves some quite tragic events and seems a much darker and more emotional story than its predecessors.

Right now, Starmen.net and Mother3.org are working on an English translation for the game, which I cannot wait for. Although playing it in Japanese isnt so bad, much of actual story is conveyed by the context, the sprites, a character’s expressions, and the timing, its just playing the game in English is a big bonus.

Lack of Subtitles Is Positively Vexatious

Finally I have got around to watching the whole first season of Miami Vice on DVD (I received the 1st/2nd Season Boxset for Xmas). It was good, I liked it, plots were fairly easy to follow seeing as the programme was made for the MTV generation, who seem to cope better with a series of non-sensical frames jumbled together rather than too much emphasis on character development and such.

Now, normally with most DVD’s and TV shows in fact, I prefer to watch them with subtitles, even If I can hear it perfectly. Why? My father is hard of hearing and so always had them on when we watched something, and other the years I just got used to having them on.

Here is the mildly annoying part, while the first season DVD of Miami Vice had subtitles, the second season for some reason, did not, and I cannot think why. The same happens with my Quantum Leap DVD’s, the first season has subtitles, the rest do not.

Funnily enough, while I was browsing, I came across http://dvd-subtitles.com/. It’s basically a site, whose primary aim is to:

“promote subtitled DVDs by ensuring that subtitle users are able to find subtitled DVDs that they want, and encouraging studios to release more subtitled DVDs.”

Now, I don’t know the cost of subtitling DVD’s, but by not subtitling them, companies are missing out on a substantial potential market for deaf people. I mean, there are 8/9 million people in the UK alone with hearing difficulties, thats pretty much a sixth of the population.

Myself even, although I’m not deaf or hard-of-hearing, but I’m still discouraged when a DVD doesn’t offer subtitles, because I’m just used to having them. English itself is a global language, so there are probably a huge number of people from other countries who would benefit from English subtitles, deaf or otherwise.