 "Photo: Nintendo")
Okay, I’m a gamer. I freely admit that I like to play video games. Even when I’m supposed to be doing work, I’m usually playing a video game.
I’m addicted to Restaurant City and Farm Town. So sue me.
While I like my Wii, my PSP and my PS2, the Super Nintendo System (SNES) will always be near and dear to my heart as my favorite gaming system, at least in the old school arena.
Some of the most often played games were Lethal Enforcers, Nuclear Strike, Monopoly and Super Caesar’s Palace just to name a few often played, sometimes stuck SNES games.
There are a couple of games however that is near and dear to my heart.
That game is SimCity. The first SimCity game for the SNES was much like its PC counterpart. The objective was the same, build your mini-metropolis while managing all the functions (minus the water and sewer pipes) of a city.
I never messed with the scenarios that came featured with the game. Solving other people’s crisis isn’t my speciality. I like the creating my own.
I wanted the power of creating and destroying my own city. Unleashing Bowser (the Super Mario character) onto my city, or allowing a nuclear power plant to meltdown and contaminating the area always seemed more entertaining.
SimCity will forever live in my heart as one of those games when I’m feeling creative I can throw it in and play until the wee hours of the morning.
Another game that was forever stuck in the SNES was Donkey Kong Country (DKC).
In DKC you had to help Kong retrieve his horde of bananas from the Kremlings. Some of the levels featured swinging vine to vine, swimming or a graphically amusing (and entertaining) mine cart ride. Along the way, Kong would receive help from an assortment of characters.
Graphically speaking, the game was ahead of its time. It used pre-rendered 3-D graphics. The game manufacturer took a big risk when it decided to make a game more appealing. It worked because the game sold more than eight million copies.
Strategy and platform game are all good and fun. But I like a game that also allows you to shoot things. Lethal Enforcers didn’t cut it for me. I want to be challenged and solve things at the same time.
The SNES version of Doom did just that, for me at least.
Ported from the PC version, Doom satisfies the inner need to kill some mutant aliens on some random moon base. But sadly, despite the fun factor of using big guns, the game falls short in the graphics department.
The first thing I noticed (now that I have years of enhanced graphic game playing under my belt) was that the graphics are poor. The ground and ceiling aren’t textured like they were on the PC version. You also can’t grab the alien’s ammo after you slaughter him. And the aliens always appear to be facing you. (So no running in the shadows for the aliens and they look pretty flat.)
But still, the game is still fun.
The best thing about the Wii is that many of my old favorite console games are available through the Wii Virtual Console. I purchased SimCity and Donkey Kong Country over the weekend. I might even check out Toe Jam and Earl while I’m at it.
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