Rewind Back: Mega Man

Let me take you back to the time of 1987. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was a hit almost everywhere in the world. Everyone was raving about it and the awesome games on it. How amazing Super Mario Bros looked. How great the colors mismatched. How amazing 8 bits were. Then a game from Japan hit the console and took tons by storm. That game was called Mega Man.

Mega Man took a basic platforming formula and reworked it to make such a great game. The story on the surface was simple. You were a blue robot named Mega Man (oddly enough) and you had to battle robot masters that tried to destroy the world. Simple, right? Nope. The story is deeper than that. Actually an amazing story for just a video game in 1987. How would a measly NES cartridge tell the story? Easy. The game was part of a huge story, right? How are stories normally told? That's right, books. After the original release of Mega Man, books telling the back story of the game were published and for sale by Nintendo's own gaming magazine, Nintendo Power.

But that's a post for another day. We're here to talk about a game, right?

Mega Man was a mind blowing game for the time. When it was first booted up, you were given a title screen that just said MEGA MAN in all capital letters. And small letters that told you to press start. After that, you were given a simple level select screen. This would be a main stay for the rest of the series. Each level had a final boss, which was the level's name. Again, simple so far.

After this, the entire game takes a big turn. Good bye, simple, hello awesome 8-bit platforming greatness.

Each level makes a unique experience in itself. All of them have to be played differently. And once you finish it you have a boss battle.

Each boss fights differently than the last and have their own weaknesses. Now let me explain. After you defeat each robot master, they drop their power in which you can download it to Mega Man. After this, he can use that power for himself and to defeat the other robot masters. For example, Cutman's blades is the weakness to Fireman. This makes the boss fight easier and helps you progress the game.

The controls were simple and easy to use. Where ever you moved the directional pad while jumping, you moved to that place. No shoddy jumping or annoying break falls here. But those disappearing blocks; don't get me started.

After finally taking down the six robot masters and adapting to their abilities. You're presented to  Dr. Whily's Castle, the final level of the game.

This is when the difficulty of the game really kicks up. Because Wily isn't giving up without a fight.

After battling through his level, with possibly a few words of encouragement from you to the game after dying a couple of times.You come to Wily's first boss battle. Oh yes, you have to defeat him more than once and that alone is easier said than done.

Unless you've perfected your platforming skills and have gotten used to using all of the robot master's powers, you aren't going to beat Wily; not by a long shot. The entire game has built you from the ground up from a simple helper robot, to a full fledged defender of Earth. I'd better explain now. When I said earlier that most of the story for Mega Man was in a book, I wasn't kidding. The story of Mega Man is this. Dr. White, your creator, made all of the robot masters himself. He built them all with the option to think on their own. Dr. Wily, his rival, stole them all and reprogrammed them all for himself. Leaving only you, White's helper robot. Wanting to help your creator and the entire human race. you arm yourself in experimental armor and buster cannon. You take on every robot master, learning their own power with the adaptation chip. A piece of hardware that allows you to adapt to another power with their power card. With all of this, you take down Wily and destroy his castle for the first time. Yeah... You do this in every Mega Man game. But that's what made these games fun. It wasn't all story back then. It was gameplay. And the gameplay made it so good. The platforming, the enjoyment of destroying your foes even though they seemingly outmatch you. That is Mega Man in a nutshell. And that is my retrospective. I loved this game as a kid, and I still love it today. Mega Man made a big impact on me. As did a lot games that I played as a kid. I had an entire world of video games to enjoy and love. And you'll be seeing a lot more of them. I hope you enjoyed this first episode of Rewind Back. There's plenty more to come. Hope you had fun reading, and keep on gaming. 

Mega Man and any other related symbols are owned by Capcom. All images were found by a basic Google Search. Don't sue me! 

The Walking Dead Episode 4: Around Every Corner Part 2

Welcome back to part two of The Walking Dead: Episode 4: Around Every Corner.Let's start back where we left off.

Once you go up into the attic you see Kenny sitting there, looking at something.That something is a zombified child. Looking like he is just skin and bones. I'll spare some dialogue, but you still need to take care of him. I mean, you just can't leave him how he is, You have a choice here; shoot him, bash him with a wrench, stomp his brains out, or just let Kenny do it because (SPOILER ALERT: He couldn't do it do his son, Duck, who was bitten. IT'S SAFE) Whatever decision you make, you stop afterwards to relish why it had to be a kid. After the sad moment you bury him outside. And while you are doing this, you feel like you're being watched. Not just by Clementine, but someone or something. Once you put the shovel down, a noise is heard in the alley; you run to see a person standing there, looking at you. When you try to get close, they run off with you yelling at them; drawing everyone outside to see what's going on. Once you tell them, Kenny decides it's time to look for a boat to get out of Savannah.

With this, Kenny and Lee look down River Street for any boats. After looking for about five minutes, you find nothing. Not one boat is left; but that doesn't mean you don't find anything of interest. On one side of the harbor there is a blockade. Which uses Zombies as scarecrows, but they're still alive, twitching every now and then. Also there is some symbols on the walls, warning trespassers to stay away from someplace called "Crawford".

Afterwards, you get a little visitor, the supposed "Bell Ringer". You and Kenny stage an attack on them once they check a news stand for whatever they are looking for. Once you get close, you see they disappeared and you're attacked from behind.
QUICK TIME EVENT. Press the button at the right time and you counter both of their attacks and you win them over.

Afterwards, you hold them down at gun point, finally seeing that they are female. When you start to add pressure to the gun's trigger, Clementine yells at you from behind. You stare at her and the girl says you aren't form Crawford; namely because you have Clem. Once they stand up they explain that you can't be from Crawford because you have a child, and apparently in Crawford, there are no children. Kenny then comes out of cover with his gun raised, coming up behind the girl, she notices and puts him into the ground; making him fire his gun. You find out her name is Molly, but the introductions are cut short when Walkers come from down the street as they heard Kenny's gunshot. Molly runs into an alley and Parkours up to a fire escape. You yell for her to wait, but decides against you until Clementine asks her to help. With that, she helps Kenny and Clem up, but the Walkers swarm in so fast, you don't have time to climb up. You run farther down the alleyway to a manhole that you jump down.

Welcome to the sewers, what happens here is pretty straightforward, you draw the Walkers attention from the way you want to go, you then slip around them bye grates in the walls. Once you come to a certain point,  you find Chuck, dead. He escaped into the sewers, only to fend off the undead until he killed himself to not be turned. It's sad that he had to go the way he did

After finding a way out of the sewers, you come to a fallout shelter, that's good, right? Wrong. When you try leaving you are stopped by the barrel of a gun held by an old person. He asks you if you are from Crawford, how you answer is up to you. After some talk you learn that they are a group of people that survived cancer, and were kicked out of Crawford. Vernon (the guy who threatened you with a gun) explains that he's a doctor, and is doing his best to treat everyone with what they have, but he's running out of supplies. You say you need to get back home, he asks you if you will be okay; here you can say Clem is waiting for you. If you do, Vernon agrees to help you; saying that he had a kid once, before the infection.

If it seems like I am rushing the post, it's because I care, and I don't think you want to read too much. 
Back at the house, Vernon checks Omid's leg (A guy you met in the last episode who broke his leg jumping from a bridge to the train) He says he has a serious infection, one he can't treat without medicine. And the only medicine around is in Crawford.
After some debate, you decide to go to Crawford for whatever supplies you need. Another of Vernon's group, Bre, offers to come along because she knows her way around Crawford. After this, you decide who comes along, Clem and Ben want to come, but you can only bring one. If you choose Ben, Lee tells Clem to stay and watch over Omid. But you are probably thinking, an eight year old watching an adult? Easy, Clem can take care of her own and shoot, so she is fine. It's time to go to Crawford and time to end the post. Come back for part three and we'll find out what's happening in Crawford. Keep on gaming, and have a great day. 

Photos courtesy of a simple Google Search. All Walking Dead: The Video Game related symbols belong to Telltale Games. The Walking Dead is trademarked by AMC. Please don't sue me.

Darksiders II Mini Review

In Darksiders II, you take control of Death, one of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, in his adventure to prove War's innocence in an early start on the end of the world.  

Similar to the first Darksiders, released in 2010, the gameplay of  II is mainly hack and slash action game with a tad bit of role-playing thrown into the mix. What this gives us is a satisfying mixture of fun and enjoyment, Along the way you have to use platforming elements and a bit of puzzle solving to progress in the story. Though this isn't all you can do in the world given to you. There are a heap of side quests and enemies to kill in this large, open world. Through killing enemies, you gain experience which you can then use to upgrades various aspects of your character. 
With this XP you can make yourself better in combat, make yourself faster, or give yourself more health and upgrade your weapons.And through all of this you are taken through amazing boss battles that come on par with God of War and Dante's Inferno. Combine those with a memorable story and you have a game you'll talking about for months to come.

All in all, Darksiders II is a great game if you just want to kick back and fight the forces of hell one limb at a time. It's a game that you won't be disappointed with. So pick up your scythes and have a blast. Photos courtesy of Google, all rights reserved to THQ.