I got lazy

so I stopped posting.

i've been updating my website periodically with things I've made, though.

http://sj.arc-nova.org

Progear

So, Trying to start this back up, with one of my favorite games: Progear. Its a horizontal shooter, that I stumbled upon checking random CPS2 games with kawaks years ago, and have loved since. The theme, graphics, music, and mechanics are all good, its one of those games with a tiny hitbox and tons of bullets coming at you, but somehow manages not to be too insanely hard while doing it, and it just keeps the fun factor up. Theres also a few things that seems to set it apart from the others, such as collecting jewels for ponits, and a secondary gunner.

As far as I know, this game was only released on the arcades, and didn't seem to be very popular at that, at least most people I know of haven't heard of it. I'd really suggest checking it out if you're a fan at all of shooters.

Ragnarok Online

I've been playing Ragnarok Online, on a private server (JusticeRO) and that has really been eating my time lately, which is the reason this isn't being updated as much as I'd like. I'll try to keep at it, although it might not be as often as before.

The New Tetris

This is really just a generic tetris game, but it keeps track of total lines, and shows you some cutscenes after so many, but the graphics are pretty easy on the eyes, and I really love the music, its become my tetris-game-of-choice lately, beating out even the GB version.

Best site ever

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/

A Christmas Hack

I just played a fun little SMB hack by Darkdata, its only four levels, the levels aren't really difficult either. A lot of things are changed around for a little hack, though. The "small" size of toad isn't small like small mario was, the fireball behavior, now a snowball, has been changed, and there are only four levels in this hack. The music has also been changed around, its not spectacular, but it did a good job of adding to the theme.

You can grab the IPS patch here. There area few extra screenshots posted there as well. The included readme has information on how to patch a ROM.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

So I finally got a chance to check this game out, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I got 99% of the castle in normal mode, and played a little bit of Julius mode. The only thing I really didn't like was the whole seal thing: pain in the ass and if you screw it up you've got to re-fight the boss, but the bosses themselves were all great. From a demon who orchestrates the attack paterns of locusts, to a giant head with four arms, who performs voodoo magic to throw you in one of those spiked sarcophaguses, all of them felt really original.

Another good thing about this game, unlike most of the other portable castlevania titles, was most of the enemies were completely re-drawn, instead of just taking graphics from older 2D titles, it added a nice touch and really made it feel fresh. The soul-synthing aspect, where you can take your weapons, and upgrade them into better versions, gave you something to do with the souls, since most of them are fairly pointless, and is a nice touch too. The only bad thing about the big wealth of weapons in this game is you wont use anything but the scythe once you get it, that with the boomerang skeleton's soul makes for the most powerful weapon in the game, just because of how fast it goes, it goes through enemies, and goes the entire length of the screen.

Nintendo DS game, I'd buy it if I wasn't broke, and had a DS, and would suggest any fan of 2D platformers do the same.

Which Way Is Up?

Really fun little puzzle/platform, I didn't get too far in it last I tried, but this game felt really original. Its a platform game, no scrolling, where you throw switches, which rotate the stage, and the goal is to get the key. Mechanics are smooth, graphics and sound works good, nothing really spectacular about the game, but its very fun nonetheless. Written in python, you can get the source and windows binaries from the homepage.

Ubuntu:
$ sudo aptitude install whichwayisup
Homepage

Upgraded

So I recently upgraded my PC, I also temporarily lost a lot of data in the heat of the action. I say temporarily because its still there, its just sidelined, and I need an IDE enclosure to get to it now, conveniently anyway. The goods: I went from a celeron to a pentium dual core E2180, and onboard intel to a GeForce 7600 GS, also doubled my ram from 512mb to 1GB.


Anyway, I'll get back to games worth checking out on monday, maybe do a flash week or something.

Ufouria (Hebereke)

This is a fun little NES platformer/exploration game. The characters went through a lot of changes in the porting process. You can read more about that here. It has four characters, you unlock them as you go along, each has different abilities, some secret, some can swim, some can hump the ground. Really great gameplay, some sweet music, and lots of fun is to be had with this, I'd suggest playing through it at least once because its awesome.

This was released for the NES, in europe with the name Ufouria, and in japan with the name Hebereke.