Well dang! It’s been a minute since I butt cheek titty fucked this particular column. Press Start! Column where we chat up the weekly happenings in the gaming world. I’ve been busy, okay? The sculpture of Casey Hudson I’ve been crafting made out of my own excrement and sticking pins into to punish him for Mass Effect 3′s ending won’t make itself. Lots of chicken finger plates. Lots of bowel movements. Lots of fun! What matters is that I’m here now. We’re all snuggled up, don’t sniff my fingers, and I’m about to rattle off five things that caught my eyes this week. Don’t see something you dug on the list? Good, this little community doesn’t work without your input. Let’s jam.

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#1: No One Knows When Super Mario Bros. Came Out In US
Super Mario Bros. dropped back in the day before the internet and the perpetual cataloging that seems so fucking standard these days. The 24/7 wind tunnel and news ticket and microscope hadn’t fully invaded the veins of Western Culture, and due to this wonky things could happen. Take this for example. No one knows when Mario’s first foray into preventing Lizard Rape occurred. Just mull that about in your brain-stem for a minute. These days we can catalog just about everything.  The quintessential jam dropped in Japan on October 12, 1985. Of this we are certain. But when it touched down in the Empire proper remains to be seen. Some people claim that same October, some think as far as the next March.

Where do I weigh in?

Man, I don’t know. I was three years old when the motherfucker dropped. All I knew is that I wanted to run quick like lightning, bashing goombas, and stop Bowser from laying urethra-destroying pipe in Peach. Since a young age I’ve fashioned myself a vigilante, stopping those in trouble. Unfortunately at such a nascent moment in my rotting history, I couldn’t manifest such a desire with aplomb. I mostly just sat around shitting my pants and playing Asteroids. The more things change, yo.

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#2: Journey Breaks PSN Sales Records
Mark this shit down as a moment for the minimalist experience! Journey dropped two weeks ago, and it has already wrested the crown of fastest-selling PSN game away from its competitors. Now, I’m going to pull down my pants and show you my warts. I haven’t played the game yet. I know. I ride the Fail Whale and shit. I’ve downloaded it though, and that has to count for something, right? Have I repelled your assaults? You stagger backwards with my repartee, grab a steel chair from underneath the ring and lay me out. I deserve this wailing. I was taken with the aforementioned Mass Effect 3, and then I dabbled a bit in the Alan Wake: American Nightmare. A small release unto its own right. Which…Sort of sucked. It felt the part of XBLA, but if it helps Remedy make a proper sequel on the next-gen swag, then my money wasn’t in vain. Take it. Take the cash.

Aside: This was also the week Fez got a release date. Fuck yeah.

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I’ve been thinking about arcades a lot recently. Well, I think about arcades a lot most of the time. But especially the past month or so. I got really nostalgic (and relatively drunk) a few weeks ago and bought a bunch of my old favorite arcade title on XBLA. It was super fun, but I really felt like something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But then it hit me, like a hollow point straight to the dome zone: I was missing the light gun games. A big part of the joy of arcade games is the feeling that they can only be played in the arcade, and true light gun classics are the epitome of this.

Sure, I guess you can buy some peripherals for your console, but especially with some specific titles (which I’ll get to) it’s just by no means going to recreate the fun, the heft, the immersion, the je ne sais quoi of the light gun experience. Those bad boys munched down many of my monies and hundreds of my hours, and I definitely would not have it any other way. They were epic, extended battles and stories the sunk their talons into your little Mountain Dew-ed brain because you were fucking playing them man. You were holding a gun and when you pointed it at a bad guy it went bang and his head popped off. Real talk: light guns are the shit. Here are the High Five.

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Honorable Mentions: Point Blank (1994) [Namco] & Silent Scope (1999) [Konami]

I wanted to start things off with two games that are non-traditional takes on what we consider to be light gun play. Also, yes, this High Five is going to have seven games on it because I was feeling saucy and by saucy I mean I was feeling irrationally bad about leaving games that I love off this list. The first is Point Blank, the candy colored goodness you see above. This game was a series of very brief shooting mini games that were sorta carnival like and generally gonzo. In my mind it’s a direct precursor the the Wario Ware series, which also holds a special place in my corazon.

The second is Silent Scope, a game that is incredibly badass in concept and yet leaves something to be desired in the execution (zing!) department. Nonetheless, the idea of having a giant sniper rifle with a little screen in the scope, and instead of mowing down enemy after enemy having to really take your time and line up one perfect shot from like a mile away: awesome. It’s pretty short, but the level where you try to get the guy running across the football field without hitting any bystanders still sticks very vividly in my mind.

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5. Virtua Cop 2 (1995) [Sega]

I can’t say the name of this game without imitating the announcer at the title screen. I played this game a ton (too much, perhaps) and it is probably the purest expression of a light gun game. You’re a cop, you have a gun, there’s a reticle onscreen and you shoot it at anonymous baddies (usually with sunglasses) and… yeah. There’s not much more than that, but the naivete of the whole operation is part of what endears me to it. Also the first light gun game I remember (I’m saying for me, I’m sure it isn’t actually the first) where you get to choose your own adventure.

There’s a part where you’re driving (the driving level in this game is actually super duper fun) and you come upon a fork in the road and you shoot the street sign for where you want to go. I dunno, I just always liked that. Despite the fact that it’s the opening “tamest” level, the signature level of this game for me is still the Jewelry Store shootout. There were bonuses and stuff hidden in vases and chandeliers which were everywhere in the level, so while you were gunnin’ down baddies your were also going after the wares like a armed bull in a china shop. Bad policing, fun gameplay.

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4. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) [Midway]

The first of two licensed titles on my list (foreshadowing!) T2 is one of the better movie games out there, and it also has one of the best guns. This bad boy didn’t detach from the machine, oh no, it was way too hefty for that. This fucker was locked down and brawny as fuck. I loved getting my pizza grease smeared fingers on this weapon to mow down Skynet’s finest. It also had an alternate fire (grenades? rockets?) that you could control with a button on the side, which I thought was really cool.

This game did a really great job of taking you through the movie scenes you wanted to play without being so beholden to the plot that they didn’t also inject totally new scenes to make the game way more badass. The climactic battle with the T-1000 (pictured above) was also epic as fuck, complete with liquid nitrogen dousing and splitting Rober Patrick in half like a piece of string cheese.

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3. Time Crisis 2 (1998) [Namco]

I imagine many of you (you all have strong opinions about light gun games like me, right?) thought this would be at the top of the list, and I will concede that it is pretty technically flawless. The seemingly simple addition of a pedal that crouches your character actually makes a world of difference in gameplay (not to mention the aggressive timeclock that put you in a – wait for it – crisis).

I remember having oodles of fun playing this game, but it never quite sucked me in like the top two did. Specific set pieces don’t necessarily stand out, but I do remember an overall really polished and professional experience, and also it was one of the few machines that didn’t seem like it was trying to eat your quarters like a hungry hungry hippo. You could get through this game on one credit if you really tried.

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2. House of the Dead 2 (1998) [Sega]

Suffer like G did? Perhaps my favorite gaming quote of all time, and a perfect example of why I love this game so much. Something about it got lost in translation in the best way, making for one of the inadvertently strange zombie tales ever. Seriously, this thing makes absolutely no sense, is constantly surprising, and achieves a bizarre tone between terror and comedy that could no way be created on purpose.

Though parts of it come off as accidental, House Of The Dead 2 really is the perfect storm of gameplay and design elements – from the zombie design (look at those fuckers!) to stage layout, varied boss fights, and cool skill challenges where you tried to save other pursued survivors. I also really liked those enemies with blade hands that crawled on the wall. And the flesh-eating frogs. Why were those things in a zombie game? Why not, it’s House of the Motherfucking Dead. I will also accept Typing of The Dead, by the way.

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1. Jurassic Park (1994) [Sega]

If you walk into an arcade and you see that InGen Jeep “cabinet” that you get to sit in while it bounces the fuck around, please drop everything you are doing (even if it’s your own children and it’s their birthday at Chuck E Cheese) and get in the damn truck. Prepare to have one of the most fun 60-80 minutes you’ve had in a while. I love this game so much. I love Jurassic Park, and this game honestly does such a good job of recreating the wonder that movie provides. Plus shooting.

Sure, there are the big awesome moments – emptying thousands of rounds into T. Rex’s face, jumping like a little girl when Raptors pop out of nowhere, trying not to get stomped out by lumbering brontosaurus – but some of my favorite moments are also, oddly, the quiet ones where you aren’t even shooting shit. Just sitting in that car (which, as a kid, felt really real) and waiting for that big, iconic wooden Jurassic Park gate to open… when I get rich I’m buying one of these.

The ferocity with which some fans yearn for ‘traditional’ survival horror from the Resident Evil series often blinds us to just how diverse a series it has managed to become. Throughout its history we have seen it shift to a more contemporary, action-centric pace with Resident Evil 5, have seen it re-interpreted as a lightgun shooter with Darkside Chronicles and now, we see Operation Raccoon City recalling the often forgotten co-op experience of Resident Evil: Outbreak. At first, the idea of setting a team-based, 3rd person tactical shooter within the Resident Evil universe may seem a little jarring, but when you consider the breadth of the series so far, it doesn’t seem that odd after all.

Playing as a member of the Umbrella Security Service you are tasked with a variety of missions taking place in and around the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3. In the simplest terms, you play as the bad guys, replete with their raspy, mysterious voices, all-black outfits and ill intentions. With the ever-present Umbrella Corporation as your master, you will find yourself tasked with all sorts of nasty business; corruption, betrayal, murder and of course, zombie clean-up. You know the drill by now.

Operation Raccoon City’s single player mode plods along at an almost soul-sapping pace. You, along with your seemingly brain-dead AI squad, go through the motions of every third person shooter to date. Cover, shoot, replenish, yawn, repeat. Functional though it may be, there’s a distinct lack of personality to the proceedings: odd, given the franchise and its reputation for surprise and innovation. For a game built by Slant Six – a team whose career rests on their familiarity with squad mechanics and fully-featured shooters- there is an unsettlingly sparse amount of abilities at your disposal. Running and shooting are taken care of, as is a fairly intuitive cover system, however, these are somewhat soured by the flimsy, unchecked close-quarters combat and the sad fact that those four features are the sum total of your entire repertoire. Umbrella really should put more money into training their Special Forces units.

Despite its failings, there is undoubtedly an element of fun to be had. High points include zombies rigged with dynamite, setting zombies onto your human foes and fighting several Tyrants at once. There’s also an undeniable sense of joy to be gained from hearing the characteristic Resident Evil sound effects and seeing the events of the Raccoon City incident unfold from a different perspective.

The largest problem you’ll be forced to suffer is those barely functioning team mates of yours. Painfully erratic and woefully useless, the team A.I. will get you killed more often than they will save your hide, or be of any use at all. The upside of this, of course, is that it forces your hand into trying the online co-op, where thankfully, the game begins to shine.

The online portion hosts a multitude of game modes: all with varying degrees of fun and/or fan service. For the latter, you have Heroes mode: essentially a team deathmatch that sees you playing as key figures from Resident Evil 2 and 3. Leon, Ada and Hunk all make appearances and bring some all-important nostalgia to the regular versus scenario. Each type of deathmatch is full of the kind of chaos that gives the game some much needed personality. Hunters, Lickers and even Tyrants will, from time-to-time, all see fit to crash your party. This allows you to pick off the enemy team when they have their hands full, or try and take down the bio-engineered bruisers to score some big points for yourself. Alongside the creature cameos, each map is populated with flesh-hungry zombies that go berserk whenever you get hurt enough to bleed and can even turn you: setting you against your now morally-conflicted teammates. Alongside these modes you also have the choice of G-Virus (a modified capture the flag style mode) and Survivor. Of these, Survivor proves to be the most interesting: pitting you as it does in a ten minute survival challenge that sees you fighting off the standard infected goons and, of course, the rival team. The twist is that after the ten minutes is up, a chopper arrives, with limited spaces and the end of the match becomes a frantic rush to the extraction point: wading through swarms of the undead and attempting to trip up the opposition in a bid to escape Raccoon City. It plays just as it should and will provide no end of by-the-seat-of-your-pants victories.

The online aspect extends its medicinal tentacles further still by managing to bolster the single player campaign. Alongside a friend, or three, the game suddenly starts to work. Previously frustrating challenges become tactical teamwork exercises and the banter will help you forget some of the more mundane sequences. It might not be able to fix some of the weaker control aspects, or gloss over the fact that there’s very little in the way of innovation, but you can dish out the virtual back-slaps with fair regularity and there’s always the chance that somewhere down the line, you can reminisce with your bros about that time you rolled over two Tyrants at once. Remember that? Yeah, that was rad.

Being the miserly, introverted curmudgeon that I am, proclaiming that a game is saved by its multiplayer aspect is a once in a blue moon occurrence. Operation Raccoon City, however, is the perfect example of a game that is better with numbers. This may not be the Resident Evil you shit your childhood underwear to, nor is it the frantic, action-horror perfection of Resident Evil 4. It is, however, a game that focuses on, and succeeds at providing a well-rounded multiplayer experience with enough Resident Evil fan service to make it a worthwhile addition to your now bulging collection.

Just as everyone is starting to gear up for the XBox 720s and PS4s and Wii-tardeds and what have you, a whole new round of the console wars, here comes game developed Ben Cousins with a surprisingly compelling (and sort of unfortunate) argument for the impending death of console gaming. I’ll give you a hint to it’s executioner: they’re all preceded by “i”. That’s right folks, the domination of mobile gaming may be on, or even well past, the horizon.

His talk was delivered at GDC last week, and is embeddable as this fun little slideshow thing (I’ve never seen this before, I guess it’s not really different than a YouTube video per se but, I dunno, I like it. Am I an idiot? Why do I feel like I have to ask that a lot…). Anyway, the basic gist of the talk is that the market size of the new mobile/Facebook platforms is so gargantuan compared to home consoles that producing solely for them is, financially, a no brainer. That seems unsettlingly plausible. I don’t necessarily believe all this will come to pass (maybe that’s just me hoping against hope) but it’s an interesting argument, and well delivered talk, nonetheless.

Via Kotaku

Capcom and Namco join forces and pit their premier beat-em-up characters against each other with Street Fighter X Tekken: a tag team brawler that defies expectations and forges its own distinct personality. As I write this review I find myself in the deepest, darkest recesses of an almighty hangover. For you see: Street Fighter X Tekken is not a game best experienced alone, but rather in the company of your friends. To adequately write this review I had to experience what kind of beer-fueled abuse it spawned; the characteristic cries of bullshit, shenanigans and cheapness. After all, what’s a beat –em-up without the trash-talk?

I am not entirely sure, but I think the game has a story. Something about a magical cube and all the baddies want it? Maybe. Who knows? And who gives a shit, right? Not to knock anybody’s efforts here, but my sole motivation for playing this game is to kick the hell out of the next guy. Whether it be online, or in the company of my closest friends, no further justification is needed. It’s the two biggest fighting franchises of all time cross-bred into a tag-team brawler that combines the most memorable parts of Street Fighter IV and Tekken Tag Tournament. Then, as if it’s trying to spoil us: Street Fighter X Tekken heaps on a whole extra-large portion of its own unique features. Get ready, there’s a fair few.

From Cross Arts, to Boost Combos, to Gems and Pandora Mode: Street Fighter X Tekken’s first assault is a roster of around twelve-or-so distinctive gameplay aspects that sit like a layer of frosting on top of Street Fighter IV’s body. Thankfully, they all come from familiar grounds: anyone who’s played Marvel vs. Capcom 2 will be somewhat familiar with the idea of crossover or team-up attacks and tagging. The major difference here is, as in Tekken Tag, only one of your characters needs to get knocked out for you to lose a round.

The amount of features and unique systems within Street Fighter X Tekken can seem overwhelming at first, so do yourself a favor and take twenty minutes to play the tutorial. The game loses a lot of the arcade immediacy that usually makes Street Fighter so much fun, but it adds depth and personalization to a fighter that is clearly aimed at the home market. Street Fighter X Tekken accommodates the newcomer by making the impossible, possible. It balances this multitude of features so as to never make them seem truly overwhelming and in spite of all that it adds to the genre, this game is the simplest brawler I’ve played in some time.

Gems, perhaps the most distinctive addition, provide an RPG-lite form of team customization. Getting a duo of favored characters is barely the tip of the iceberg as you also choose a combination of up to three Gems that best suits your play style or to combat that of your opponent. The Gems come in two distinct flavors; Boost Gems that can increase strength or speed and Assist Gems that can provide enhanced defenses or even simplify commands. Whether or not you really care about the Gems depends on who, and how, you play. Amongst friends and at a more casual level of competition they are thankfully easy to ignore and never make character selections as time-consuming as many feared. However, it’s obvious that as you start fighting the ‘bigger boys’ you may just have to start paying attention to your load out. In theory, this offers a fortified connection between player and team: reminding me of just how attached I became to my party configuration from Final Fantasy VII.

Unfortunately, as a single player experience it is incredibly lackluster. There is little-to-no impetus to play Arcade Mode, unless you really are somehow gripped by the paper-thin storyline. Any possibility for unlockable content has been siphoned-off for post-release DLC so somewhere down the line you will be asked to put up even more cash should you want to select from more than two colourways for each character. However, what it lacks as a single player game, it makes up for with multiplayer features. Two-on-two tag mode or the four players on one screen insanity that is Rumble Mode should not be missed and are the kind of things that can break lifetime friendships.

Tekken characters bulge and shine as if they’ve been injected with a magical Capcom serum. The gelatinous glitter-goop threatens to burst from every seam as Namco’s characters reveal their true potential, caricatured and sitting comfortably beside Capcom’s roster of near-iconic brawlers. Backdrops are vibrant, animated and brimming with personality. Whether it’s Final Fight’s Mad Gear Gang dancing in Kabuki outfits, or Tekken’s Alex cheering from beneath a lumbering T Rex: they successfully stimulate your nostalgia prostate and will milk the lifelong fan for all they’re worth. Health bars rattle and shudder and every single action has an accompanying, distinctive sound effect. This game just exudes personality and scorches your retinas with an irrepressible technicolor assault.

I’ve always felt that fighting games should be accessible. For too long, the fighting game community has been happy enough complaining when their outrageous standards of ‘balance’ aren’t met and reducing online servers to incestuous love-ins that excel at eliminating new blood. What Street Fighter X Tekken aims to do is bring communities together and create an all-new playing field that newcomers can quickly get to grips with. To a certain degree, it succeeds. Simplified inputs, a cast that spans multiple franchises and Gems that can aid you with your shortcomings: all of these aspects offer accessibility for the newcomer and potential depth for the hardcore cult.

Reviewing Street Fighter X Tekken could take me months, years even. This is simply because the best beat-em-ups are the ones that gestate over time. They transform and evolve: allowing you to figure out new methods and form new attachments. Street Fighter X Tekken is exactly the kind of game that I want to spend months with. I want to get attached to new characters, figure out new methods and grasp each nuance. It may not quite be up to the task of replacing Street Fighter IV, but it is massively enjoyable and the only game that will allow you to see a giant bear farting in Ryu’s face. Not to be missed.

Game developer – or some would say movie + quicktime event studio – Quantic Dream have just released what they call a tech demo for their new as yet unnamed engine. It’s a 7 minute short called Kara and it’s about a glum female android who’s coming to terms with her lack of humanity and newfound sentience and all that fun stuff that androids in the future are always crying about. Quantic Dream aggressively claims that this is not, however, at all indicative of what their next game will be like.

Yeah. Because I believe that for a second. Because you would spend all that money on design just to demo your new engine instead of using the art properties of Heavy Rain. You know what they did with the last tech demo they said had nothing to do with a game? They turned it into Heavy Rain. Nice try Quantic Dream. On the plus side, it looks pretty cool I guess. Kinda like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but the future is never a bad place to start. It may look gorgeous (and feature some signature QD nudity) but it still features some problems like crappy voice acting and some weirdly static faces. We’ll see.

Up to this point, I’ve only been marginally impressed by the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Over 5 or so years, and a kind of staggering number of games (1, 2, Brotherhood, Discovery, Altairs Chronicles, Bloodlines, and more) Ubisoft has flirted with greatness and usually stumbled. However the newest installment, a numbered one who’s debut trailer landed with a bang on the internet today, has me more excited than I ever have been before about this franchise. Assassin’s Creed III finds you in the headspace (and, to be frank, the whole framing story with the Animus is utterly boring to me) of Conner, a half-brit/half-native American slittin’ throats and bussin’ heads throughout the American Revolution.

Maybe I’m just being a jingoist prick, but that sounds pretty fucking awesome to me. It’s also arriving with a brand new engine, which is always a good sign both for this game and other Ubisoft titles. The trailer is also quite badass, especially the part where Conner (I know they had to update it, but that name just sounds less Assassin-y compared to Altair and Ezio Auditore…) plants a dude’s rifle in the ground, impales him on its bayonet, and then shoots his face off with it all in one swift motion. You will also, apparently, get to take part in stuff like Paul Revere’s ride, and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Color me interested.

Last week, Nintendo decided that they would not be selling indie darling The Binding of Isaac (which I reviewed here) in their E-Shop, citing the game’s sacrilegious themes as their reason for doing so. This set off quite the firestorm on the internet, not only because it’s a very good game which I’m sure Wii and 3DS owners would like to be able to play on their televisions/handhelds, but also because it pressed the always hot button of censorship in our free country.

Now, for many reasons, Nintendo had every right to do this, even if they have let arguably more “profane” games pass muster before, because it is their E-shop. You may not agree with it, but unless you’re a significant shareholder then they don’t really have to care what you think. It’s the practical and also legal paradigm that has been long established in the gaming world, even if now is the first time some people are noticing it. See, unlike other mediums, the hardware companies that manufacture consoles have to license you to develop on their products.

As illustrated here, I can’t just make any game I want and put it in the Nintendo E-Shop, nor, in fact, can I legally develop a homebrew Wii game at all, even if it was printed on disc, not retailed by or branded with Nintendo, or even sold for a profit at all. Simple using the Wii firmware stuff would constitute a break in licensing law. You might be saying “Yeah, that makes sense” but in fact it sort of does not. At all. After all, does Sony have to authorize you to make a Blu-ray disc? Of course not, because that would be stupid.

But, because gaming was an industry that expanded very rapidly and had no precedent, the big companies involved ended up being able to make all these strange rules before anyone really even noticed what had happened. If I know one thing about humans, it’s that there are always people who want to break the rules. If there’s one person in gaming who does that, it’s Suda 51. But if there’s a second, then it’s Valve founder Gabe Newell. And if recent rumors prove to be true, he’s about to fuck some shit up. In a good way.

It is becoming more and more certain that Valve is developing what basically amounts to their own console, which would be the first major entrant into gaming hardware not from the big three since the former 4th pillar, Sega, collapsed their hardware division post-Dreamcast. The prospect of a major new console is exciting enough, but the details (not to mention the people behind it) make it even better. Newell has long been a viciously outspoken critic of Microsoft and Sony’s hardware divisions, and also their and Nintendo’s online distribution services. I believe the words “horrible disaster” popped up more than once.

But now it’s time for the (billionaire) to put his money where his mouth is. Not only does this new console, now being referred to as the Steam Box, though that’s a 100% unofficial nickname, innovate on the hardware front, it will also, in case you couldn’t tell by the name, be intimately intertwined with Valve’s Steam service, long considered the absolute paragon of digital distribution.

Steam is also, to relate to my earlier ramblings, a free-to-develop space, where user created content can be openly shared for profit or not, without the meddling of Valve or anyone else. The prospect of a set top box that connects Steam to your TV, and third-party developers (which I suppose in this instance means everyone, not just huge studios like Epic! or EA but also studios like your neighbor Rick or the nerdy kid who sat across from you in Java 101, or, y’know, you) having the freedom to develop games of any size and “shape”, gets my heart racing just thinking about it.

There’s also rumors of a modular controller, meaning you could swap out thumbsticks for d-pads, and d-pads for trackballs (!) and any number of other things, allowing the whole system to stretch and bend to the whim of the gamer and the developer, allowing for a freedom and interactivity heretofore unheard of in console gaming. This is also, I might point out, the freedom that hardcore PC gamers have been rightfully bragging about for years. All of this is in such a pre-natal state that I’m hesitant to get too excited. But it’s worth hoping that when we refer to the next console generation, we can truly talk about evolution, instead of just upgrade.

Something about Valve games just really sets the modding community off right. From Counter Strike on, Valve modders have set the gold standard for user produced content, with some of their mods being immensely popular games in their own right. Apparently, it doesn’t even have to be a Valve engine you’re modding. Stabyourself, an online gaming community and micro-game studio, just dropped their FREE Super Mario Bros. x Portal mod, Mari0.

It’s a complete rebuild of SMB with added functionality like a portal gun, level editor, 4 player co-op and more. It’s really fun, and as I mentioned it’s totally free. Hell,  it may not be Garry’s mod, but it’s fun off the bat and deep enough to actually give you a bounty of hours if you’re feeling creative. Download Mari0 Here.

I love fighting games. We at Mishka love fighting games. Have you seen the Street Fighter II machine in our store? Of course you have. Because it’s awesome and I talk about it all the time because I love it. The persistent relevance of SFII is testament to the longevity of fighting games from past generations. Indeed, some would certainly say that the original Mortal Kombat is still the high water mark for the series, despite the gaming industry having travelled technical lightyears since its release.

The main reason for this is that the mechanics of a fighting game are essentially quite simple, though mastering them to become a true contender is among the hardest feats in gaming. Regardless, for a successful fighting game all you basically need is some character sprites, a flat plane, and ways to beat on someone else. Anything else is essentially window dressing. But while franchises like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, and Marvel Vs. Capcom have been given next-gen installments, many franchises have been left in the past. It’s sad because we wish we had more, but the blow is softened by the fact that those games are still incredibly awesome, and still ridiculously playable. Here are those game.

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Honorable Mention: Primal Rage [Atari]

The alternate history prehistoric-gods fighting game that was stuck in the back of your favorite arcade, Primal Rage was a game that wanted to be different. First off, none of your avatars are human, instead dinosaurs or giant apes. In charge of the earth after a meteor strike (or something, the details are slightly fuzzy…) these gods have human followers who will crowd around your feet as you fight.

And guess what? You can eat them. I really remember that being awesome. Eat your own dudes for extra health, and the other guys disciples to reduce his health and up your score. Then there was the control scheme, a total flip on everyone else’s that it really seems like it was done to be contradictory. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hold a button down and then trigger attacks with the joystick, as opposed to vice versa. Pretty damn good game here.

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5. Bushido Blade [Square]

What a weird/hard/awesome game this is. For my little kid self, playing this on Playstation 1 for the first time was very frustrating. It’s a sword (or general weapon I guess) combat game that tries pretty admirably to recreate the “way of the warrior.” While me and my friends were used to just beating the shit out of each other with repetitive attacks, Bushido Blade forced you to use things like, y’know, skill and tact.

You see, if you got hit once you were pretty much dead. So the battles – which were set in massive feudal Japanese looking environments – consisted of careful planning of attack and copious parrying, just looking for the best time to go for a fatal strike, or cripple a limb. There were also some lightly implemented “respect” mechanics (i.e. you can’t just stab your opponent in the back) that contributed greatly to the game’s unique tone.

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4. Clayfighter [Interplay]

Clayfighter 63 1/3 was my shit. I remember thinking that game was just so goddamn funny. To be honest, this is the one I haven’t played in the longest, so lemme know if the gameplay is crappy, but my memories of this game are just so fond I kind of don’t care. My friend Michael was the first to get it and we played it for hours in his basement. Oh man I just watched the intro on YouTube and nostalgia’d so hard. “Let’s get ready to Cruuuummmmbble!”

Great characters like Bad Mr. Frosty, Sumo Santa, Houngan (was his “get away” catchphrase a shoutout to Scorpion??), plus fucking Boogerman and Earthworm Jim. And claytalities. Sweet sweet claytalities. I definitely feel strongly that the fighting game landscape is missing a game with a great sense of humor (MvC is sometimes funny…) and a new Clayfighter would be just the medicine.

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3. Darkstalkers [Capcom]

Considered leaving this one off because I guess there have been some portable sequels (the last one in 2005) but I think everyone can agree that we haven’t gotten the Darkstalkers sequel that we all deserve. Sure, Morrigan and her absurd cleavage (and to a lesser extent Felicia) may have become trademark characters of the MvC series, but where’s my Anakaris, Lord Raptor, and most importantly Bishamon. I want Bishamon damnit!

It used pretty much the same fighting mechanics as fellow Capcom title SFII (not a bad place to start) but if my memory serves (and by that I mean I was playing it a few weeks ago) you can walk forward in crouch and can also block attacks in the air. I know that sounds simple, but if you’ve ever been spammed by jump attacks in SFII then, well, you know that shit counts. I know a sequel to this have been oft rumored, but I think it’s high time that became a reality.

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2. Killer Instinct [Midway]

Say it with me now “C-c-c-c-combo breaker!” And with that, Killer Instinct entered the pantheon of fighting game elite. The combos are really what I remember most about this game (which I played as Killer Instinct Gold on my N64, which is technically a port of the arcade title Killer Instinct 2). As opposed to other games, where the combos were performed as individual moves strung together with perfect timing (something that was maddeningly difficult for young me) Killer Instinct‘s were triggered by button combos.

So you could just memorize that and pop off massive combos on your idiot friends. Awesome. It also seemed somehow grittier than the other fighters (Sidenote: speaking of “gritty” remember Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.??? That game sucked though.) and you could play as awesome characters like Skeletor (err… I mean, Spinal), Fulgore (such a good name!), and TJ Combo. Good times.

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1. Power Stone [Capcom]

Holy lord did I pour an ungodly amount of hours into this game. More than any other I think it deserves to come back because it delivered a coherent and endlessly entertaining fighting mechanic that was truly novel, maintaining the essence of a 2D fighter and seamlessly adapting it to a 3D arena. I actually had two long periods of play with this game, an initial one upon it (and it’s sequel’s) releases, then a renaissance if you will throughout high school and college.

A party game par excellence, Power Stone features great characters who have relatively simple fighting styles, but the variety is introduced in the levels and items. Opening up the player space as they did, including multiple levels and interactive objects, was outrageously invigorating. More than any other discontinued fighting franchise this game is just purely so damn fun to play. I would love for them to make a new one, but I seriously doubt I will ever stop playing the original.