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The red-headed step-blog of Retromags.com

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Retro Picks - Areala's 10 Favorite Casual NES Titles

Sometimes you just can't be as hardcore a gamer as you want to be. Sure, there's nothing like sitting down and marathoning through a game like Dragon Warrior in a 20-hour stretch of levelling madness, but as you get older and summer vacations become a thing of the past, most of us don't get that kind of quality time in any longer unless you wind up both independantly wealthy and without a significant (or dependant) other. So what do you do when you want to game, but you only have an hour or le
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2

[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #1

Let's Read: Nintendo Power #1 You've probably seen on YouTube or other internet video sites the "Let's Play" idea, where one person sits down with a game, a microphone, and a screen capture utility and proceeds to play through an entire game while offering running commentary, pointing out secrets, and in general just showing off what the game has to offer. Well, I'm not cool enough to have a video capture device or a microphone or the desire to sit and blabber my way through hours of
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The SaGa of Final Fantasy Legend II (GB)

Quick: when is a Final Fantasy game not a Final Fantasy game? Answer: when Nintendo decides to rename a different Squaresoft RPG in the hopes of capitalizing on the fame of the Final Fantasy name. This was the case with a series of games released in the US on the Game Boy. In the US, we know them as Final Fantasy Legend I, II and III, and Final Fantasy Adventure. In Japan, however, they're two completely different series. Final Fantasy Adventure is actually Seiken Densetsu, the precursor to
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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #8

Let's Read - Nintendo Power #8 Here we are, eight issues in to Nintendo Power's run, and the big news of the Sept./Oct. issue is Duck Tales. In fact, it's such big news that the big N is devoting a dozen pages to it in this issue in addition to all the attention it got in issue #7. The best news is that Duck Tales is one of the rare examples of a licensed property game that didn't suck eggs, so I can't begrudge Nintendo for featuring this game on the cover. This issue also features th
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Going (PS) Home One Last Time

There are a couple of Retromags members on my PS3 friends list, but I'm not sure if you all knew that outside of blasting Necromorphs in Dead Space, or ruling the city streets in Saint's Row, I spent an awful lot of time in Sony's online avatar-based virtual world called PlayStation Home. If any of my readers ever ran across me on there, feel free to chime in and say hello in the comments--I was "Areala" on there, just as I am here. I know, how original, right? Anyway, I got involved with Home
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A Warrior Nun's Most Difficult Adversary

The above song, "Santa Monica," comes from Savage Garden's self-titled debut album. It's the final track. Chances are, unless you're a huge fan of the band, you've never heard it. It got no radio play, there was no official music video, it's just one of those songs the world glosses over. It's also the one most completely out of place on the record. It's no pulse-pounding dance club track like their breakout hit, "I Want You". It's not a poetic profession of love like "To The Moon and Back" or "
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Some Neat Parasite Eve Prototype Shots

I frigging love Parasite Eve for the Playstation. It's one of my favorite RPGs of all time (small wonder, since it's written and directed by the guy who directed Chrono Trigger and designed Final Fantasy IV on the Super NES, and scored by Yoko Shimomura who did the music for Breath of Fire, Kingdom Hearts, many incarnations of Street Fighter II, and Legend of Mana among others), and I've felt it never received the recognition it deserved coming as it did in the wake of Final Fantasy VII and bei
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Five Horror Films That Were Ahead of Their Times

The recent death of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, who starred in such memorable films as "They Live" and such immemorable ones as "Hell Comes to Frog Town" and "Sci-Fighter", really got me thinking about movies that were ahead of their time in one way or another. So I'm not boring my readers to death, I'm restricting myself to the five best examples that I believe fit this mold and I'm only allowing one John Carpenter flick on the list. That said, here are my picks: 5) John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)
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Where Did You Get Your (Nick)Name?

I've gotten a few PMs since I joined up at Retromags from other members asking me what my name means, or where it came from, so I figured it would be a good idea to answer that question out in the open, once and for all. First of all, Areala is not a misspelling (intentional or otherwise) of "areola". One is my user name, the other is a part of the body. Just figured I should get that out of the way. Those of you who were reading small-press comics in the mid-90s may have guessed where my n
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4

Andrew Oliver: "Preowned games bigger than piracy." Areala: "BULLSHIT!"

(Note to Penn & Teller: no infringement on your popular TV show is intended by this blog's title). You may not know who Andrew Oliver is, or why he would make such a comment, or why I am ranting about him, and that's OK. Andrew, along with his brother Philip, is the co-founder of Blitz Games Studios, a small development house from the UK which specializes in licensed titles, especially in the realm of software aimed at younger gamers. Remember all those Xbox games Burger King sold in thei
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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #6

Let's Read - Nintendo Power #6 Welcome back folks to another exciting episode of Let's Read magazines with Areala! Today, we're tackling the sixth issue of Nintendo Power. Why are we tackling the sixth issue of Nintendo Power, you ask? Because we've already taken care of issues 1-5 in previous blog entries, and it's always best to avoid redundancies. A quick look at the cover will tell you that this is, in fact, the May/June issue from 1989, and the feature everybody will be talking
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Game Difficulty - What Makes You Play Again?

Retromags member Softballchic and I spend a lot of time talking most nights, and it's often about video games: what we like, what we dislike, and what we're really good at. Last night the topic of achievements/trophies came up. On the PS3/Vita/PS4 model, acquiring every other trophy in a game rewards you with a final achievement, a Platinum trophy, which showcases that you've not just finished the game, but COMPLETED the game. By the time you acquire a Platinum in most games, there should be lit
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4

Hanwell Mental Institute Mystery Deepens (Updated: 3rd and 4th Videos)

I received the following message from an individual who identified himself as Leonard Huntings (though this is possibly a pseudonym). It was apparently reconstructed from an analog source and remastered for internet distribution. It's a little creepy... Appended to this message was the video itself, which I am presenting here: It's currently impossible to know where this video orginated, as I don't know anybody named Leonard Huntings. An educated guess would be that it somehow ti
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Gaiares - Can You Say 'Mullet'?

One of the best things about flipping through old magazines is, of course, the ads. Doesn't matter whether you're looking at EGM or National Geographic, the ads always hold up a mirror to the culture of the time period. Advertisers know that twenty years later, neither anyone's going to care about the way an ad looks, nor will they be mocked for it by future-dwelling homo sapiens. Because of the internet, they're also wrong. Video game ads don't often approach this level of hilarity, but my
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A Clive Barker Gaming Mystery

Magazine demographics often come into play when deciding what ads agencies will submit to a particular publication. In the case of this ad, which came from the very first issue of Next Generation magazine in 1995, their attempt to reach an older, more mature audience meant they got stuff that wouldn't fly in the pages of EGM or GamePro, which were targeted at a younger teenage audience. Check this out though: that's an offer to write a horror fiction story for a video game inspired by Clive Ba
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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #10

It's been a while since my last one of these, and I find myself desiring to get back on the horse, so let's get this party started up again, shall we? Hold on to your seats boys and girls, and LET'S READ!! Hot damn, this issue brings back memories. Aside from the first issue, this is the earliest issue of the magazine that I still own in physical print format (I had issue #9 a long time ago, but it met with a gruesome accident involving Kool-Aid that I'm still not willing to discuss). In any
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2

So Close, Yet So Far - Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill

Remember Socks? He was the black and white feline counterpart to former US President Bill Clinton. Children everywhere used to write letters to Socks (and his canine bro, Buddy); the best of these got collected and published in a book entitled, "Dear Socks, Dear Buddy." Everybody loved the First Pets, so what better way to show your appreciation for all their trials and tribulations around the White House than to immortalize one in a video game? Er...right. So somebody at Kaneko has this br
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0

Natalie Portman + Diablo = ?

Another one of my favorite Easter Eggs. Boot up Diablo (the original) and use Print Screen to grab a copy of the title screen where you can start a new game and whatnot. Now, close the game, open up your favorite image editor program, and use the Paste command to dump the screen image into the program. You should get something that looks like this: Looks innocuous so far, right? Big red demon, some title screen junk, and nothing at all about Natalie Portman. As a wise Jedi once note
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2

Two Pieces of Contemplative Poetry

Occasionally when the muse strikes me, I will write. Sometimes I do short stories, sometimes I work on longer ones, but often I write poetry. These are two examples from my lunch break at work today. Feel free to contemplate their meaning to myself or to you, and discuss in the comments box. * * * * * In my heart I wrote the ending a million times. In my mind I wrote it one thousand. In my journal I wrote it four or five. In my reality It was written once With heavy editing, not my
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Let The Hate Flow Through You - The Worst Star Wars Games To Date

I will level with you by starting this blog with the caveat that I am in an incredibly foul mood at the moment. But rather than doing something constructive with my rage, like tossing small children into deep wells or drugging really ugly men at the bar and leaving them in my neighbor's front yard without their clothing again, I decided I might be better served (and avoid inconveniences like court dates and prison sentences) to compile a list of horrible Star Wars games. I'm aware that this is
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So Close, Yet So Far - Fireteam Rogue

Digging through the collection, I unearthed this gem discussing a really awesome-looking game being developed by Accolade for the Genesis and Super Nintendo. I'm pretty familiar with the bulk of the Super Nintendo library, but I didn't remember ever seeing this title on the market. Was it yet another unreleased game previewed by EGM, this time in their January, 1994 issue? A quick trip to GameFaqs confirmed my suspicions: Fireteam Rogue was in development in the mid-90s and then axed before c
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Dire Grove - Hidden Object Games Meet The Blair Witch Project

So I've been fussing around with a few hidden object games over the last couple of months which is why my progress on this blog has been...infrequent to say the least. Some of them have been crap, a couple of them have been good, but only one has stuck out so far enough to make me want to write about it on here, and that's Dire Grove. Dire Grove is just one game in a series known as "Mystery Case Files". These have been published on a number of platforms including the Wii and the DS, b
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The Creator of Scratches Vows To Scare You Again

Some of you may not be familiar with Scratches, and if that's the case, then I pity you because you missed out on one of my favorite graphical adventure games of all time, and one of the creepiest games of 2006. It casts you as Michael Arthate, a horror novelist who hit paydirt with his first book and is now looking for a suitable atmosphere in which to complete his sophomore effort. His idea? Buy the oldest house he can find, and live there to let the atmosphere surround and penetrate him to
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[Let's Read] - Nintendo Power #3

Let's Read: Nintendo Power #3 I've always thought that every so often Nintendo chose some odd titles to give cover treatment to with their magazine, and this issue's focus on Track & Field II is probably the first time I thought this. Granted, I've never been into sports games, so that probably explains some of it. But did they really think that anybody in their right mind would list this game alongside the likes of classics such as Super Mario Bros., Metroid, or Legend of Zelda?
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What The F&!@ Were They Thinking? - Masters of Teräs Käsi

In the days before the Internet started shoving a cruel, pointed stake into the hearts of video game magazines, we had no choice but to trust the reviewers who got paid to do what we all wished we could get paid to do: play lots of video games and then write about it. The guys and gals of the gaming journalism world were supposed to be our lifelines, making sure we didn't buy the crap and didn't miss the gold. Usually they were on the money. But sometimes...well, deadlines can do strange thin
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