Throwback Thursday X-Men Legends II Rise of Acployase

Throwback Thursday X-Men Legends II Rise of Acployase

Robert Knuckles

X-Men Legends back is and better than ever

        Activision is back with another X-Men classic with X-Men Legends II Rise of Apocalypse. X-Men Legends II is the sequel to the first game but this time it doesn’t just feature players playing as the X-Men but also playing as their sworn enemy….. the Brotherhood.

        Legends II kind of starts where the first game ends. At the end of the first game players see Apocalypse warning that the “age of Apocalypse is nigh”. Time after that Magneto and his brotherhood meet up with the X-Men at a military prison in Greenland to rescue Professor X to only find out that Polaris has been kidnapped by Apocalypse. At that time both the X-Men and the BrotherHood need to help each other in order to defeat Apocalypse.

        Just like the previous game Legends II is an action role playing game. Not much has changed gameplay wise. The biggest addition is that players get to play as the BrotherHood and a few new X-Men characters. Players can still choose to play by themselves with three A.I.s or they can play with up to three of their friends for an amazing Co-op adventure.

There are a couple new characters in Legends II. Players can choose from Magneto, Juggernaut, Toad (who I love) and Scarlet Witch. Future fighter Bishop joins the fight and Iron Man makes an appearance as a secret character. Favorite X-Men characters such as Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Gambit, Rogue and more return. You can also play as Deadpool before he got his rise to fame.

Characters gain more power ups which can be overwhelming because there are so many and some are useless. Now I get what Activision was trying to do but it really wasn’t necessary. Another cool feature is the ability to do team bonus. When you make a certain your team gets a bonus. For example if players have a full female team they’ll get the bonus Fame Fatale the player will get five percent damage inflicted when health is gain. There are a lot of team bonuses.

You’ll get to fight familiar enemies such as Omega Red, Lady DeathStrike, Baston, Mr Sinister and of course the big boss Apocalypse.

In the end X-Men Legends II Rise of Apocalypse is a fun game. It’s definitely a game for X-Men fans and it's also on the list of best X-Men games. I also feel that this game is one of the best co-op games. If you have a Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox, PC or PSP give this game a shot. My only gripe with the game is the huge list of superpowers and I wish there were Brotherhood characters to play as but overall this is still a very fun game.

Throwback Thursday: X-Men Children of The Atom

Throwback Thursday: X-Men Children of The Atom

Robert Lewis Knuckles III

“The Real Beginning of The vs. Series”

With Marvel vs Capcom Infinite coming out pretty soon there has been an issue with the game having no X-Men characters. Well I want to talk about the game that introduced us to the vs. series and that’s X-Men Children of The Atom.

X-Men Children of The Atom came out for the arcades in January 1995. The time where arcade games were awesome. We didn’t have social media to know about an upcoming game we would have to look at a gaming magazine. Children of The Atom did come out for the Sega Saturn on April 6 1996 and Playstation on February 1998 and people stay away from the Playstation version.

X-Men Children of The Atom is 2D fighting game made by Capcom that features X-Men characters 90’s X-Men television series. You can play as 10 characters. It features Wolverine that can heal and use his claws and a fast rush down character, Cyclops that uses his optic blast, Colossus the strongest of the X-Men and can use super armor, Iceman that has good defense and uses ice attacks, Storm who uses wind and lightning attacks she’s the only X-Men that can fly and Psylocke is another fast character who uses psychic energy and can use ninjutsu. The villains feature Omega Red who can use his tentacles, Sentinel the biggest character and a cheap punk, Silver Samurai that uses energy on his sword and Spinal who can teleport and use her six arms in combat. The games features two bosses. Sub boss Juggernaut another large and strong character and last boss Magneto who’s also cheap. Akuma is a secret character in the game. Akuma has his Street Fighter II character sprite.

Just like in Street Fighter players have meter called X-Gauge. The gauge starts at level 1 for X-Power. When it gets to the middle players reach level 2 X-Ability. X-Ability can have players tech their opponents whether it’s escaping a throw or recovering from the ground. This consumes parts of the X-Power. Level 3 is Hyper X which is the super combo. Player’s will see a huge X on the screen when performing this move.

Children of The Atom featured high jump, air combo, off the ground combo and more. You see these following features in future upcoming vs series games. The stages were pretty cool. Everyone had their own stage. The most noticeable had to be Spinal’s due to the fact the stage floor breaks three times.

X-Men Children of The Atom is a fun game. What caught my attention were the characters. X-Men is my favorite superhero team and seeing them in a fighting game was a dream. You can make the argument that without this game we might’ve never gotten the Marvel vs. Capcom series. We have to pay homage to this game when playing or making a Marvel vs. Capcom game.

Throwback Thursday: Gauntlet Dark Legacy

Throwback Thursday: Gauntlet Dark Legacy

Robert Knuckles

“Co-op Classic”

Time for another Throwback Thursday Classic game and it's a game that is very underrated in my opinion. The game is called Gauntlet Dark Legacy, which is the expansion pack of the arcade game Gauntlet Legends. Dark Legacy was developed and published by Midway Games. It was released for the PS2, Gamecube, Xbox and the Game Boy Advance but we’ll talking about the platform systems.

Dark Legacy is a hack and slash dungeon crawl game that’s up to four player co-op. Players can choose between a warrior that has the best strength, wizard that has the best range and powerful magic, archer that has the best speed and valkyrie that has the best defense. New to Dark Legacy are the dwarfs, knights, sorceress and my favorite the jester. Players can also choose the colors of red, blue, yellow and green for their characters.

The story in Dark Legacy is basic. An evil mage named Garm used the power of the runestones to summon the evil demon Skorne to control but Skorne rebelled and killed Garm. Skorne released his minions and scattered the runestones across the eight realms. No one has dared try… until now.

Players will travel across eight realms with either five or six levels with a boss being the final level. Players shoot out projectiles to defeat enemies. They can shoot fast and slow attacks and use them as a combo. Players can use their turbo a special attack that cost players their meter and can use it to defeat enemies that are surrounding them. Enemies come out of generators that players have to destroy to stop them from reappearing. Players also collect many items on their adventure. Players can collect treasure that they can use to buy items at the end of each level. Items in this game are really fun to use and there are a lot of them. There are items such as the hammer that players can use to make the ground shake and kill enemies at a far distance, some items give players three way shots there’s even an item that turns players into a chicken called Pojo, a chicken that can shoot fireballs but one of favorites is anti-death. There’s annoying guy called death. Death dressed in red drains the player's health and Death dressed in black takes a player’s level but if players have anti-death they can use it to gain health or gain a level from death.

The realms are also pretty cool. The Sky Realm has players travel across spaceships while the scenery can look pretty good but the Dream realm might be my favorite. Now when players go to these worlds they’ll have to collect 13 runestones. There are sometimes one or two runestones in certain realms. Players will have to collect all runestones to complete the game.

 There are some console differences that I experienced. In the Gamecube version players that gain items don’t have them at the start. You have to go through your inventory to activate it and also in the Gamecube version players can’t see the bosses health which would be helpful to see how close they are from dying.

In the end I think Gauntlet: Dark Legacy is a fun game. It’s one of the best co-op games I’ve played. Now granted it might not a be a favorite from a lot of people and the presentation isn’t the best either but gameplay takes that away. Now it’s not the best game but it’s fun especially if you play it with the right people. Playing this by yourself is okay but playing it with your friends is even better.

Throwback Thursday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time

Throwback Thursday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time

Robert Knuckles

“Another Arcade Classic”

Back with another Throwback Thursday game and that’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. Last week I talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade game and today I’m going to talk about it’s sequel Turtles In Time.

Turtles In Time was released in arcades in 1991. Some of the arcades featured two joysticks for players to pick their turtle where some featured 4 joysticks where players had to put their quarter in certain slots to play as a certain turtle.

The Story in Turtles In Time is pretty simple. April O’ Neil was reporting live until Krang took the Statue of Liberty. The turtles set out to get the Statue back and fight the evil Shredder and Krang but as they go on their adventure Shredder throws them in time portal hoping they won’t be able to return home.

The gameplay in Turtles in Time follows its predecessor but with a few tweaks. It’s still a side scrolling beat em up game where players get to the end of the level and fight a boss at the end. Turtles are now able to slam the Foot Ninjas on the floor left to right. The Turtles are able to throw the Foot Ninjas on to the screen pretty much breaking the fourth wall. Players have the ability to run and do sliding attacks. There’s also a Pizza Power box where the Turtles do a spinning special 360 attack killing enemies in one hit. There are some pretty interesting levels in this game. Players will travel in the Dinosaurs, Pirates, Old West and Futuristic worlds.

Turtles In Time was rereleased on the SNES in August 1992. It was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time. It featured two players but a couple of changes were added. A couple of sound animations were changed. Sewer Surfing featured The Rat King as a boss, Technodrome is the next level after Sewer Surfing and players have to fight Shredder in a machine but can only hit him by throwing enemies at him. Cement Man is replaced by Slash who is freaking annoying. Bebop and Rocksteady return as bosses and players fight Super Shredder as the Final Boss

This game is also unlockable in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare with complete different music. Turtles in Time was remade in HD for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as Turtles in Time Re-Shelled but we won’t get into that…

Turtles in Time is another classic arcade. People can make the argument that Turtles is better than it’s predecessor and I don’t blame them. I feel as though Turtles in Time is a bit shorter and could’ve added a few more levels. That’s my only grip with the game but I still love this game. I actually played this game on the SNES first. I was always thinking if this game had an arcade version that’s up to four players and I was right. Like I said when you play a Ninja Turtles game it’s a rule to have four player co-op. You can still find this game somewhere in the arcades. I wish that players could download the original on the current game systems but only time will tell.

Throwback Thursday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game

Throwback Thursday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game

Robert Knuckles

One of my favorite days of the week.. Thursday! So you know what that means time for another Throwback Thursday game. Today I’m going to talk about an arcade classic and that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game. This classic game was released for the arcades in 1989. It’s a side scrolling beat’em up game that features the classic 80’s series of the Ninja Turtles. The most common place I found this arcade classic were at a couple of Chuck E Cheese's.

This was one of the first of many arcade games where up to four people could play and work as a team. The arcade featured an eight-way joystick with an attack and jump button. Players could play as any of the four turtles. To play as the leader Leonardo players would have to insert their coin in the first slot, to play as the party animal Michelangelo players would have to insert their coin in the second slot, to play as the smart scientist Donatello players would have to insert their coin in the third slot and if players want to play as the cool and rude Raphael players have to insert the coin in the fourth slot. Each turtle does play a bit different. Leo is the average with balanced speed and attacks, Don has slow attacks but has the greatest reach and Mikey and Raph have fast attacks but low reach. Players can perform the turtles special attack by pressing the attack and jump button simultaneously.

The story is pretty basic. The story starts off with a fire in April’s apartment and the turtles must save her they must also stop the evil Shredder. The turtles battle the robot foot ninjas in every level and at the end of each level they’ll fight familiar bosses like Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang and of course Shredder.

They did manage to import the arcade version of this game to the NES titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II The Arcade game that only goes up to 2 players. It’s a lot more difficult than the arcade machine. It does add two new levels and new bosses.

You can also download this game through Xbox Live Arcade but I’m not sure if it's still available to download. You can also play this game through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus as a hidden bonus game but it only has altered music and has most of the voice clips edited out.

In the end this arcade game is a classic. What I really love about this game is that four people can work as a team just like in a show. The Turtles are always working together and that’s what makes their brotherhood so strong. In my opinion anytime you make a Ninja Turtles game you need to make it co-op. Playing it by yourself is fun but playing it with four people is even better.

Throwback Thursday Kingdom Hearts II

Throwback Thursday Kingdom Hearts II

(Warning do not read this if you are new to the series and haven’t played the first two.Spoilers.)

“Sanctuary”

Back with another Throwback Thursday game classic and thats Kingdom Hearts II. Kingdom Hearts II was developed and produced by Square Enix. It was released in America on Mar. 28, 2006 for the PlayStation 2. So Kingdom Hearts II has been out  just about over a decade ago. It’s crazy to think that. So let’s dive in and talk why this game is so great.

Kingdom Hearts II story takes place after Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. The story still focus on Sora, Donald and Goofy as they wake up from their sleep in Castle Oblivion to regain their memories and still continue to look for King Mickey and Riku. The three encounter new enemies called Nobodies. When a heartless is created they lose hearts leaving an empty body without a heart creating a Nobody. They really don’t exist and pretend to have hearts. Another new enemy is a group called Organization XIII. They are powerful forms of Nobodies. Each member has a specific element power. Unlike the Heartless Nobodies can actually think and they have a plan. They consist of 13 members. Sora, Riku, Donald and Goofy have already faced some of the members in Castle Oblivion in  Chain of Memories but fans of the series already know this. Throughout your adventure you will come across returning Disney and Final Fantasy characters from the first game. Beast, Aladdin, Jack and others reunite with Sora but you also team up with new characters such as Mulan, Jack Sparrow and Final Fantasy’s own Auron.

The gameplay in Kingdom Hearts II is still an action hack and slash RPG game. Players still have the command list on the bottom left. A new feature that I really loved is the Reaction Command. Specific attacks on enemies are made when you see the Triangle button on top of them. Sora performs these cool attacks and sometimes you’ll need to do these reaction commands to defeat bosses. Now sometimes I feel as though these reaction commands can make fights more easier but granted I still love the command.

Sora, Donald and Goofy still level up and learn new moves. Abilities return as well and once again they are really useful.

Another new feature is the Drive Gauge. It’s a new meter next to Sora that once it’s filled up Sora transforms into his Drive Form. He’ll bond with either Donald or Goofy or sometimes both. Sora will have two Keyblades kicking butt with new attacks called Growth Abilities. Like I said Sora will bond with either Donald or Goofy. The person that Sora bonds with disappears for a short period of time but if Sora bonds with Donald and Goofy both characters will disappear. There are multiple Drive Forms that players can unlock. Drive forms can really help out when the player’s health is low because it fill their health but in Drive Form players can’t heal themselves.

The Drive Gauge are also used for Sora to use Summon. Summon return in Kingdom Hearts II. Summons allow Sora to summon a Disney character to help them in battle.

Another cool feature that I don’t think gets talked about is that players can go back to worlds and have a second story segment which is really cool.

In the end Kingdom Hearts II is a very fun game. The story gets really depth and still continues to add suspense. There is a lot of things to do in this game. I love the new abilities especially the Reaction Command and the Drive Forms. Now many gamers question that Kingdom Hearts II is easier than the first one. I believe that Kingdom Hearts II was the first game out of the series to do an Easy mode. This is definitely one of the top PS2 games in my opinion and I love everything about it. It will be tough to find this game on the  PS2 but you can play Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix on the PS4 with the 1.5 and 2.5 collection. I recommend players that want to get into the series should buy that. Be sure to look out for my review on Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix on the PS4 coming soon! And be sure to look out for Kingdom Hearts III in the future!!

Throwback Thursday Mario Kart Double Dash

Throwback Thursday Mario Kart Double Dash

Robert Knuckles

Drive, Drift, Speed Up, Crash, Switch!!!!

        Those are some of the words I use to describe this throwback game which is Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

        With the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe coming  soon I feel as though now would be the right time to talk about one of my favorite Mario kart games which is of course Double Dash!!. Mario Kart Double Dash was released on the Nintendo Gamecube on Nov. 17, 2003

        Now the Mario Kart series has been around for two decades with the first Mario Kart game called Super Mario Kart being released in 1992. Mario Kart has always been known for its crazy racing; fun courses and of course the items which pretty much make Mario Kart for what it is.

        As a fan of the series I have liked every Mario Kart but Mario Kart: Double Dash has always been one of my standout favorites which I still play to this day with my friends. Now let’s dive in and talk about this wonderful game.

        Double Dash!! Was the first of the series to feature 3D graphics and of the course the biggest one is having two drivers in one kart one driving and one using items. Double Dash was also the first Mario Kart to feature a of lot new characters to the series such as Waluigi, Daisy, Birdo, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi and many more. Players could make a team of the Mario Bros. but can also choose to have Mario work together with Bowser.

        Another feature that they used in Double Dash and future Mario Kart games are the weight classes. There are light, medium and heavy characters. Lights karts have great acceleration but their top speed is not great. The advantage light karts have is that they don’t lose a lot of speed when they go off course. Medium karts have average acceleration and top speeds so of course they share attributes from lights and heavy. Heavy karts don’t have great acceleration but their top speed is great and they can send light and medium karts away if they run into them but if heavy karts go off course they lose a lot of speed.

        Players have to be careful of what characters they pick with the new weight class. Characters cannot ride in karts that are smaller than they are. Two light characters ride a light kart, two medium characters ride a medium kart, two heavy characters ride a heavy kart but if there’s a light character mixed in with a medium character they’ll ride the medium kart or if a medium character is mixed with a heavy character they’ll ride the heavy kart. You probably get it by now.

        An interesting game play feature that Double Dash has is that characters have a certain special item. The Mario Bros. can throw fireballs, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can throw a giant banana. There are so many more specials players can try out. Another cool thing is that if you have two different partners you can have double the special item. Players also have to be careful because in this game they can have their item taken away if a player uses a mushroom running through another racer or by someone using the star item.

        Now Double Dash has some interesting courses. Rainbow road had to be one of the toughest rainbow roads throughout the series but the favorite course is Baby Park. The smallest course that goes around in an oval with seven laps which makes it the craziest track ever especially playing it with four players making it a crazy blue shell frenzy.

        Now of course with a Mario Kart game there’s a grand prix where players will have to play in order to unlock new karts, courses and characters. The most annoying speed in the grand prix is of course the mirror mode. Which we all know how much we can’t stand it due to annoying computers and blue shells. Oh how we love the blue shells.

        Battle mode is a lot of fun as well. Balloon is the same as in the N64 version but Double Dash features capturing the Shrine Sprite where players hold the Shrine Sprite for a certain amount of time and another new feature in battle is called Bob-ombs where players throw bob-ombs at each other to get a certain amount of points but players will lose points if they get hit by a bob-omb which make it fun and crazy.

Another great addition is the ability to play co-op where players can work together and have one person driving and the other person using the items

        In the end Mario Kart Double Dash!! Is one of my favorite Mario Kart games to this day. I loved the roster the game play especially with the ability to drift and get a little speed but the multiplayer is where it’s at. Playing with four people it’s anyone’s game unlike the Wii version where people can crush the competition easily.  For anyone that has a GameCube I would definitely recommend Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Throwback Thursday NBA Street

Throwback Thursday NBA Street

Robert Knuckles

It’s been awhile since I've done a Throwback Thursday game. I apologize with the delay with school and all but I’m back with another classic with NBA Street.

Now I’m not a sports game fanatic but NBA Street is one of the only sports game I really enjoy.

NBA Street was released for the PS2 on June 18, 2001 and released on the Nintendo Gamecube on Feb. 17, 2002. It was developed and published by EA games

This game features NBA players from the 2001-2002 season, that was a golden year era for myself especially after watching that 2001 All-Star Game. You have favorites such as Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, Chris Webber and so many more. Michael Jordan makes an appearance as well in this game as well. Granted there are only five players on each team. There are also made up characters called Street Legends who are inspired by real people for example Street Legend Stretch resembles Julius Erving and you also have a white boy named Drake who acts hood but is actually from the suburbs. There are plenty of other unlockable characters in this game.

NBA Street features three on three basketball with street rules. Fouls don’t exist in this game. Two point field goals are one point and behind the three point line are worth two points. There is no time limit but there is a time limit with possession of the ball. Players that score up to 21 points win the game but you have to win by two.

Now while playing players can build up meter for their game-breaker. Game-breaker is build up by scoring but mainly doing special maneuvers such as faking out defenders, dunks, alley-oop, block shots and so much more. Once players build up their meter they can perform their game-breaker. Players can either shoot the ball or dunk the ball. It increases your score and it also decrease your opponent's points all well.

Players can create a player and use them in the mode City Court. An arcade type of mode where players face NBA teams in certain regions and face the Street Legend of that region. After every win players have the option of taking one player from the losing team or gain more points for your created player to increase their stats

Now City Court’s PS2 version is a bit different from the Gamecube’s version. Now the objective is still the same but in the PS2 version Michael Jordan helps the player by being on their team but he’s also the last boss to beat. Where in the Gamecube version he’s not helping out the player but Jordan is still playable on the Washington Wizards that is if the player chooses that team

There are also cheat codes. Before the game starts players have a time limit to make certain patterns for example players can have pictures of a basketball,basketball,turntable and shoe this makes players use the NBA ball. There are even more cheats where players can’t do alley-oops, no dunks and so much more. In this generation you can go to any website and get the cheat.

In the end NBA Street is so much fun. If you love basketball this is a must have or if you love sports in general I would pick this game up as well. The music is good and you get that street vibe from playing this game. A guy like me that isn't too much into sports games but I can make an exception for this game. It's a shame that we haven't seen this game re-leased as a downloadable game on the current game systems. You're better off buying this online or at an old school game store. The rating I would give this game would be an 8 out of 10.