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• For Love of the Game: The Legend of Zelda – The Shadowgazer

  We could run a daily For Love of the Game feature on Zelda remakes alone. Zelda 1 with 16-bit graphics, Zelda 1 made out of Lego, two-dimensional Ocarina of Time, side-scrolling Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening running on Minish Cap’s engine, Twilight Princess dating sims, and on and on and on. People love Zelda, they always want more Zelda. But, and it’s a truth that’s taken a serious toll on the series, people tend to want Zelda exactly the way they’ve had it before, only slightly different. Fans aren’t the only ones who keep remaking Zelda; Eiji Aonuma’s been doing a bang-up job of it for almost a decade. More interesting than homebrewers adding a special blend of basement hops to the same old quest-lager are those adventuresome folks making all new Zeldas. The re-appropriation of yesterday’s art can yield both inspired results, as with Zelda: Outlands, and well-meaning but forgettable outings like Parallel Worlds. It’s especially rare to see a homebrew Zelda filled with original sprites and scenarios. King Mob’s The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer, from the looks of this trailer, is especially becoming. Read More... Posted Oct 28 2008, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, for love of the game, game boy, the legend of zelda, zelda II, the legend of zelda parallel worlds, homebrew, link to the past, zelda outlands, link’s awakening

• For Love of the Game: Sonic 2 HD

  As I've said a number of annoying times, I've never cared much for ol' Sonic the Hedgehog, even in his beloved classic form. It's a design thing — I can tell you about any number of specific places in Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Mega Man levels, but Sonic levels seem to blur into a procession of the same compositional elements over and over. If you've seen one loop-the-loop, you've seen 'em all, especially when all it takes to get through them is holding right on the d-pad. One column in which Sonic cannot be faulted, however, is presentation. Graphics and music have always been the little blue shinbiter's strong suit. Read More... Posted Oct 24 2008, 12:30 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments Filed under: peter smith, metroid, remake, for love of the game, fan project, mario, mega man, zelda, sonic the hedgehog, sonic, sonic 2

• For Love of the Game: Quest for Glory II

  Lori and Corey Cole's Quest for Glory was always one of my favorite franchises. It set unusually logical puzzle-solving (by adventure-game standards — no “THROW BRIDLE AT SNAKE” here) in culturally distinct worlds that went beyond the usual D&D boilerplate. Even in Quest for Glory I, which eased players into the series with a traditional medieval setting, the sense of place was richer than usual. (My favorite detail: a frost giant from north of the Germanic game-world speaks in the alliterative verse of Beowulf.) But Quest for Glory II must've blindsided fans of the first game. Expanding the small-scale campaign of QfGI into a world-saving epic, it also transported the hero from a sleepy European valley to the full-sized Arabian city of Shapeir. In all the hype about GTAIV earlier this year, I couldn't help thinking that QfGII had done the same thing decades before — not at the same scale, but with as much attention to detail. Read More... Posted Sep 11 2008, 10:00 AM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, remake, for love of the game, fan project, quest for glory, sierra, lori cole, corey cole, adventure game, agd interactive, quest for glory ii

• For Love of the Game: Zelda Jams Re-appropriated

  I’m not even sure what you classify this as: are they just fan remixes? Fan-fiction remixes? I just don’t know! NeoGAFfer cicerone posted up this bizarre nugget of internet detritus yesterday and, for the nostalgically inclined and Nintendo fanatic alike, it’s quite a treat. These are Koji Kondo’s songs from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time re-orchestrated using the instrumentation from Kirby, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, Momotaro Dentetsu, and Mario Galaxy. Not only that, but they’re also re-imagined to suit the tone of those games as well. Read More... Posted Jul 30 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, for love of the game, mario kart, mario, donkey kong, zelda, kirby

• For Love of the Game: Rockman 7 FC

  Most people agree that the Mega Man series went downhill around Mega Man IV. I'm with 'em. But Mega Man IV, V, and VI are pretty great all the same, which is more than you can say for Mega Man 7. Boy, do I hate Mega Man 7. Some people say Mega Man 7 is good, but they are charlatans with no taste. Everything got cutesy all of a sudden, the music sucks, and the feel is completely off, probably because the character sprites are so big that there's no room to maneuver. Luckily, some enterprising soul in Japan put his programming (and art and music) skills to the test, and came up with Rockman 7 FC, the greatest thing I've seen all week. Read More... Posted Jul 17 2008, 05:30 PM by Peter Smith with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, for love of the game, mega man, mega man 9, mega man iv, mega man 7, ghouls n' ghosts, rockman 7 fc, fan projects, mega man 8, ghosts n' goblins, rockman 7

• For Love of the Game: Outcast 2 (Sorta)

  Back in '99, Inogrames released Outcast, an excellent adventure game that presaged the sandbox gameplay of GTA III by two years. As a Navy Seal, your mission is to escort three scientists to a parallel dimension in order to close a black hole threatening earth. Sounds like typical action fare, but things get interesting when you begin interacting with the dimension's people. The Talans, as they are called, hail you as their messiah. Theirs is a world of servitude and social strife. As you interact with the townsfolk, the story unfolds in non-linear series of quests and chance meetings. Common today, revoutionary for the time. Perhaps a little too revolutionary, as the game received universal accolades but flopped commercially. It was the first game with an open-ended 3D world that the player was free to explore at his leisure. Additionally, it achieved a perfect, seamless balance between intense firefights and casual exploration, perhaps even better than that found in GTA III. The game seemed to live and breathe on its own, regardless of player action. The world of Adelpha would keep on turning, whether you wanted to further the overarching plot or not. The excellent artificial intelligence rivals even today's games. All this was soundtracked by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This too was progressive. Read More... Posted Jun 23 2008, 10:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: for love of the game, cole stryker, outcast

• For Love of the Game: Street Fighter One

  In the hallowed halls of the Street Fighter series, there's really only one stinker — one game that's just not fun to play — and that's the original Street Fighter. It's a damn shame, cause the character designs are pretty cool (outside of a couple of generic muscle-men like Joe), and the graphics are really quite attractive for the time (Lee and Eagle's backgrounds are pretty spectacular actually.) But the actual gameplay... well, it's disastrous. You can only choose Ryu or Ken, they both control like your commands are mere suggestions, special moves are near-impossible to pull off, and enemy attacks seem to do vast amounts of damage randomly determined on a per-occasion basis. It's a pretty startling swing and miss for the normally infallible late-'80s Capcom, and though it was a decent-sized hit at the time (big enough, anyway, to warrant a markedly improved sequel) it's pretty much a historical curiosity at this point. But because the graphics are cool and the characters are classic (and because it's the first game in a truly legendary series), I've always wanted someone to make a revamped version that was actually playable. Well, someone has. Read More... Posted Jun 18 2008, 04:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments Filed under: peter smith, for love of the game, ryu, ken, street fighter, capcom, street fighter one, metroid ii, capcommunications

• For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

  The original Metroid is one of my all-time favorite games, so my feelings about Metroid: Zero Mission, Nintendo's 2004 remake, are predictably mixed. Zero Mission repairs some of the archaic aspects of the original, like wonky controls, an annoying password system and the obligation to refill your energy every time you return to the game. On the other hand, it diffuses the sprawling, almost Lovecraftian eeriness of the original with its aggressive handholding — a trademark fault of late-period Nintendo games. It also unforgivably bungles one of the greatest climaxes in videogame history — the slaughter, by the player, of a shrieking brain in a jar, followed by a slippery-thumbed ascent up an exploding escape shaft — by tacking on a painfully out-of-place stealth section. In any case, Nintendo's obvious follow-up was a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, a game that arguably needed revamping more than the original. Read More... Posted May 12 2008, 01:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, metroid, remake, nintendo, for love of the game, sr388, fan project, kotaku, metroid ii return of samus, metroid zero mission, another metroid 2 remake, super metroid, metroid fusion, metroid sr388, hp lovecraft, game boy