Intellivision Lives! DS Review

Most Intellivision games are terrible. However, there are enough exceptions to make this collection worthwhile for any retro gamer.

The stars of this collection are undoubtedly the AD&D games, relabeled as generic fantasy adventures, but with all the original art and gameplay.

Crown of Kings was the first. It's something in-between Adventure for the 2600 and The Legend of Zelda. It randomly-generates caves and the map to offer endless potential and replayability.



Tower of Doom is my other personal favorite, offering a selection of dungeons, many randomly-generated, and is quite simply an awesome dungeon crawler.

Frog Bog is a nice addition as well, and I've always thought it was better than Frogs & Flies for the Atari.

Other Intellivision classics like Astromash appear, but I'm sure they left a few of the favorites out. They certainly left out the extras--such as documentaries present in the PS2 version--out of this release. Every game, however, has an in-game instruction manual, and I've found the interface intuitive and easy-to-navigate.

It's definitely the collection to own, although its getting hard to find these days, but not impossible. I'd recommend getting this collection while you can, and maybe even supplimenting it with the Intellivision Lives! disc for the PS2 or PC. I picked the PS2 version up for $1.59 at gamestop this week, and that's a hell of a deal. The DS version is a little more expensive, but it's got the better game selection and the the touchpad function nicely with the overly-complex Intellivision controls.

Get both--Intellivision might not be the best, but it's good enough. The AD&D games are truly epic, and legitimize the purchase, everything else is just gravy.






Read The Full Article:
http://8bitcity.blogspot.com/2012/01/intellivision-lives-ds-review.html

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The Book of Legends Preview (PC)

Aldorlea Games (3 Stars of Destiny,Millenium) and Ensorcelled have a new role-playing game coming out soon calledThe Book of Legends, and we have some screenshots to share with you. Check them out behind the cut!

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Stone Age Cafe Review (PC)

Gamezebo Rating:

In Stone Age Café you play as a young woman named Chuchii. Your tribe?s shaman has foretold your destiny as the tribe?s cook, and thus begins the game. If you have played restaurant themed time management games in the past you won?t find anything new here besides being set during the Stone Age: In other words, you'll be seating customers, cooking food, and desperately trying to keep your customers happy as you run your café.

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Curse at Twilight: Thief of Souls Review (PC)

Gamezebo Rating:

The most disappointing thing about Curse at Twilight: Thief of Souls is unfortunately what is also expected to bring you into the game: the story. You?re presented with a completely clichéd entry, as you are summoned to a once-abandoned manor via mysterious letter. Once you arrive, you?re quickly trapped and must make your way through this manor, uncovering secrets along the way, until you can eventually escape. While the setup may seem overdone, there?s an incredibly enjoyable gameplay experience hidden behind this gloomy façade.

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Graphic novel Scarygirl recieving video game
adaptation this January

by: Travis Huinker
NEWS - Square Enix and TikGames have announced the upcoming release of a video game adaptation for Nathan Jurevicius’ graphic novel Scarygirl.  Players will be placed in the role of Scarygirl, an abandoned child that has a tentacle as an arm and dresses like a pirate. Along her quest to find a man that haunts her dreams, she will receive help from friends including a giant octopus and rabbit that knows kung-fu. From the beautiful art style to the quirky story premise, Scarygirl looks to be quite a twisted adventure when it launches this month. Included below is a list of the game's various features:

• Amazing Art and Design: Surreal landscape and creatures are beautifully fantastical, created by a critically-acclaimed, award-winning artist and true to the art style that Scarygirl fans have already fallen in love with
• A Curiously Wonderful Stand-Alone Chapter: The game features a new and exceptional storyline separate from the graphic novel and planned feature film, in which Scarygirl finally meets the mysterious man haunting her dreams
• New Moves, Weapons & Upgrades: The game’s upgrade and combat improvement system allows Scarygirl to grow beyond her basic attacks by purchasing new moves, like the “Anaconda Squeeze” and “Morph Tendrils”, or attachments for her tentacle arm, such as the Rage Hook
• Co-Operative Play: While one player controls Scarygirl, a second can bring Bunniguru’s furious “Fists of Blurry” into the fray at any time. This offline feature allows the two characters to perform special moves together to overcome major challenges

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Sales of boxed games and consoles took a 13% hit
in UK

There's a lot of stuff we like over here in Blighty: Football related thuggery, laughing at Europeans, crap food; it's an endless list and I've really just mentioned the highlights. But you know what we don't like? Boxes. To show our disdain for these plastic and cardboard prisons we're buying less and less physical media than ever before, even hardware sales are down.

Of course, this is something that's happening everywhere, not just in the UK. According to figures released by UKIE (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) sales of consoles, accessories and boxed games were down by another 13 percent in 2011. That's still £2.520 billion in sales, though. 51 percent of annual sales came from the busy fourth quarter, with grim men making foreigners explode and grim men, women, elves, orcs and a whole bunch of other creatures making dragons explode.

The drop was expected, it's hardly like this is the first year it's happened, but it was actually less severe than anticipated. There was growth from the Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS and total software sales of £1.2 billion. With overall consumer spending down, the industry didn't fare too badly according to UKIE. It's worth noting that UKIE does not include DLC, mobile games or second hand games and considering the importance of all three of those things in the industry today, the results could be very different if they were included.

Total UK boxed game sales down 13% in 2011 [gamesindustry.biz]

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MAGFest X: The best one yet

Today wraps up the 10th annual Music and Gaming Festival, and I'm really sad that it's all over. MAGFest has always been fun for me, as many of my closest friends have been coming to the event every year since its first year. I've watched it grow from a gathering of a few hundred gamers to a massive convention center filler with legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu as its headlining act. 

MAGFest public relations head Nick Marinelli told Destructoid that this year doubled last year's attendance, with over 6,100 people storming the halls of the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, MD. More than 2,400 packed into the main music hall to hear Uematsu and his band, Earthbound Papas, perform some of the greatest songs from Final Fantasy history. 

This weekend was also great for Destructoid as we hosted our very first MAGFest panel yesterday. Hamza Aziz, Samit Sarkar, Matthew Razak, Andrew Kauz and I busted open Dtoid's secret vault of embarrassing staff pictures, played the most messed up game of Family Feud, and gave away hundreds of dollars in videogames and prizes. We've had a great time hanging out with all the community members that came out to MAGFest. I drank after half of you, so thanks for the throat funk! 

What a great weekend. 

In the gallery below you'll find a great collection of images captured by photographer Chris Serani. 

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White Haven Mysteries Collector's Edition

After waking up in an abandoned building, you find that you've been drugged and cannot remember who you are! Find the antidote before it's too late in White Haven Mysteries! As a mysterious man taunts you with his experiments, you must use your wits to figure out your identity and figure out where you are. Find Hidden Objects in chilling scenes, pick apart puzzles, and make it to safety in White Haven Mysteries!


Read The Full Article:
http://www.fenomen-games.com/white-haven-mysteries.htm

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Nobuo Uematsu and Earthbound Papas rocked MAGFest
hard

Face? Rocked off. Heart? Still beating. 

Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and his band, Earthbound Papas, headlined the concert Saturday night at the 10th MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival), held this year at National Harbor, MD. The crew traveled directly from Japan to the Washington D.C. area to bring live prog rock versions of gaming's best songs to the show's main stage, including Final Fantasy VII's "Still More Fighting," Final Fantasy V's "Clash on the Bridge" and the ultimate version of Final Fantasy VI's boss battle, "Dancing Mad." 

About 2,500 fans packed the hall in what the convention center says was their biggest concert ever. Uematsu followers, lifelong MAGFest attendees and new guests packed the floor so tightly that it was hard to move. Stationed to the right of the stage in a roped off area was a Uematsu fan with his two children, both of which are named after the composer in some way. 

The energy of Uematsu and his band was infectious. Fans screamed, cried and I even saw one swoon, nearly falling backwards. This energy was present through the entire set, leading up to the ovation performance, where I saw Uematsu pounding on his Hammond organ with clawed hands, hitting the lower half of the keyboard with his butt as he bounced up and down.  

I've seen a lot of live performances in my time, but I've never seen a show this great. I'm still buzzing. In the middle of the show I heard someone behind me say, "I'm never missing another MAGFest ever again."

Be sure to check out the work of our photographer Chris Serani in the gallery below. 

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MAGFest: How a NES power adapter saved the main
concert

I heard a great story today from MAGFest director Dominic Cerquetti about how a Nintendo Entertainment System power adapter and a bit of technical knowledge saved the headlining concert last night. 

Special guests Nobuo Uematsu and his band, Earthbound Papas, were at rehearsal yesterday afternoon practicing, and found out there that they were missing proper adapters for their guitar pedals for the concert. It turned out that no local stores -- not even Radio Shack -- had what was needed to power this essential gear. This put the show's staff in a rough place on the night of their biggest concert ever.

They put out a call across the event for every AC adapter available, sending their staff to every corner of the convention center and hotel. It turns out that the show's game room had plenty of adapters, and from reading voltages from units found that a NES AC adapter might be a match. The staff called in their electronics guru to the stage, where found himself actually soldering and adapting the NES plug to work with the band's gear as they practiced Final Fantasy VI battle song "Dancing Mad."

As the song wraps up, with its majestic ending guitar solo, the technician finished modifying the adapter and was able to present it to the band. 

Cerquetti explained, "With that, the Earthbound Papas are powered by an original AC Nintendo power brick. We all lost our sh*t, man."

The entire concert went off without a hitch, powered by a Nintendo Entertainment System power adapter. 

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