METAL GEAR SOLID : the exorcism of a video game demon that had haunted me for over 14 years

Many moons ago (1998) when the Playstation One was in its infancy, Metal Gear Solid was released by Konami, legendary game makers of the 16 bit era (Contra, Super Contra ) and produced by Hideo Kojima who at the time was best known for the cult police investigation game Policenaunts, MGS was heralded as the first truly next gen action adventure game, everyone that I knew with a PSOne couldn't wait to get their hands on this opus of a game.

On its release date I remember picking the game at the now defunct "Pinguin Village" on Elizabeth Street in New York's Chinatown, rushing back to my apartment and being blown away by it's Hollywood style score and cinematic intro. I played the game with a joyful frenzy, savoring every successful sneak and takedown until the fateful day when I encountered the Villainous Psycho Mantis. 

For those of you who haven't played the game, Psycho Mantis was a video game boss in his own class, he would read your mind (memory card) mock your taste in video games, appear "change" your TV's video input, use telekinesis to throw shit at you, turn your friend against you and then turn invisible all in mid battle.
 


(here's a taste of old leather chaps on action)




Up until that point, I had foolishly breezed through several levels of the game saving over my previous saves, missing several key items that would be paramount for my battle with this fiend (thermal googles, ammo, rations) so when the battle came I was hopelessly outmatched and ill equipped to beat this digital devil.

Hopelessly I battle Psycho Mantis for what seemed like a eternity, hours became days, days became weeks and pride being what it was, I refused help from magazines or the or the preYouTube 56.6k Internet, until finally surrendered to Psycho Mantis.....he won and I traded in a game that up until that point I loved for something a little less threatening because of an "unbeatable" Villain.

For the longest anytime Metal Gear Solid would come up as the topic of conversation with friends I would cringe as I made excuses as to why I never finished the game.

Flash forward to a the now, someone gives me Metal Gear collection HD for the Playstation 3 and it was like shell shock, I couldn't bring myself to open the game weirdly enough due to the simple fact that I let the first game beat me....no strike that, I let Psycho Mantis beat me.

So I plunked down $9.99, downloaded that MGS on the PSN, set it to normal and off I went.

I don't know if it was maturity, patience, experience or a combination of all Three but I managed to beat this "monster" of a game this time on normal in less than 15 hours of playtime and even though they are no "Trophies" for PSOne classics, as corny as it sounds as a gamer the personal achievement meant more to me that any platinum Trophy in any other game.

And today I opened Metal Gear HD collection, on to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty.

-PSN ID: Grandaiza out.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD GAME

This takes me back to the Sega Saturn days of arcade perfect multiplayer beat-em ups.

Here's what they haven't told you, it will only be available for a limited time on the PSN so if your a fan of the Scott Pilgrim series, don't wait, support the game while it's available

also buy the books and go see the movie.

I MISS MY DREAMCAST

Surfing through the interweb, I cam across this video (see below) that made my dewy eyed for my Dreamcast.

Don't get me wrong, I still own one with a lot of "backups" but it's Moth balled in my closet. I packed it up to keep dust and insects out of it in the hopes of putting together a kick ass entertainment room someday.

Until then all I have are memories....sniff...

( and a PS3 with a 500gb Hard Drive, built in WI-FI and access to hundreds of free demos )

But until I get Street Fighter 3 : 3rd Strike HD on the PSN, I'll still have a reason to keep my Dreamcast.

Nintendo Game & Watch retrospective

Courtesy of DS FANBOY

Nintendo aficionado and fellow gamer DS FANBOY put together a nice little site that looks back at the at the classic handheld series.

Other than those shitty Coleco sports games with the little red LED players, these where the only option for a kid looking for on go gaming in the 80's.

I had a few of these as a kid ( and a few confiscated in elementary school ) if your looking for a classic game and watch fix, I believe they released these as a cartridge for the Gameboy advanced ( also works for the DS )

for more click below for the link to the article:

CLICK HERE FOR GAME & WATCH ARTICLE

MY PSP'S RESURRECTION

I've owned my Play-station portable since it's launch about for years ago and after the initial excitement, like a lot of early PSP adopters, the lack of quality games early on kind of killed my love of Sony's little black portable until I eventually started carrying it less and less during my commute until I stopped taking it to work all together.

For Two years I had completely forgotten I had this piece of hardware that I paid $300 for collecting dust at home. Two Weeks ago a friend ( we'll call him Dr. Baines ) offered to Mod it for me. he asked what I wanted, I told him shipped it out to him and got it back one week later with
all of my favorite games loaded on it. I use it more than my ipod now.


All of my gaming needs are taken care of now, my shit is nice.

Just to give you an idea of what we're talking about here, here's a list of my favorite Apps on the PSP.

NEO GEO MVS EMULATOR

play your favorite neo geo games on the PSP

CAPCOM CPS2 EMULATOR

all of your favorite capcom arcade games

SNES

SEGA GENESIS

Interested? who knows maybe if we ask nicely, the good Dr. Baines might start doing house calls resurrecting PSP's all across this great land.

TOP 20 SNES Games

Courtesy of Screwattack

a slow news day for the site. So here's a nice little list of nice SNES games for those of you out there who feel nostalgic ( or if your looking for SNES roms )

enjoy

20-11

and here's the TOP 10

BONUS STAGE

CLASSIC GAMING: KARATEKA for the C64

1985, while Chuck D was asking us to fight the powers that be, I was busy watching my older cousin Peter playing KARATEKA on his Commodore 64 for hours from the door to his room 

( he didn't let any younger kids into his room without permission, unless he was feeling very generous )

Anyway I remember Peter getting the little Karate guy that you control to run and not being able to stop him, and the poor little character would run into the enemies fist, killing you with one fatal blow  to the head and making you start all over.

No save points , no codes , no matter much progress you made , you had to start all the way from the beginning.

I remember watching the little animated karate master and thinking how life like and fluid his animation was, begging for a chance at the game, swearing that I could do much better than my cousin, I mean the guy was getting killed at the same first enemy over and over, how hard could it be? But alas I wasn't allowed in the room.

Eventually my cousin soften his "No kids allowed" room policy and actually let me play the game. 

I never got past the first guy.

CLASSIC GAMING COIN OP : ARABIAN FIGHT

Manufacturer: Sega
Year: 1992
Genre: Player beat em up
Conversion Class: Sega System 32
Number of Simultaneous Players: 4

Description

Using one of four sprite-based humanoid characters overlayed on several layers of scrolling backgrounds, the player punches, kicks and jumps over enemies in a simulated 3-D playfield as he seeks to save Princess Luruna from the evil Sheikh Sazabiss. Power-ups enable use of magic and recharging of life energy.

A four-player simultaneous beat-em-up game based on the Sega System 32 arcade hardware. Four player-selectable Arabian-themed, anime-drawn heroes: Sinbat, Ramaya, Goldor and Datta fight through a number of levels to save the kidnapped Princess Luruna from the demonic magician Sheikh Sazabiss. The most interesting feature of Arabian Fight is the use of scaling.The sprites are huge,and as the player moves 'into' the screen,they decrease in size, increasing as you move 'out' of the screen.

REVIEW

This is a very rare game, I remember palying this game in between rounds of Street fighter Champion Edition and Samurai Showdown 2 in NYC penn station arcade before they closed down and turned it into a KMART, Very nice graphics With fun little out of the foreground action and large animated "Supers" that made this game unique.

I haven't seen this game anywhere else since then. If anyone knows where I can get my hand a
working MAME pack for this game please email me with the info.

Here are some pics and a video