More or less, my Newer Computer (That I loathe), is unable to connect to the Internet, due to a mistake on my part. This means I have two options for net access; The Wii, and my Older Computer.

I choose the Older Computer, if not just for the fact it has most of my Older Games and Sprite Work on it. If I wish, I can always just switch to the newer one to play Fallout, or something. I'm just happy this one can connect, period.

Anyway, it seems like there's a Dreamcast in my Near Future, so I'll be playing that and not caring as much.

=D

(Yeah, not much, but I'll do better next time.)

Now, I'm in an area with VERY few Arcades, or Arcade-like Areas. However, I, like many of my fellow Dtiod-ers, enjoy the games. It was in a Jillians that I found an amazing game; Megaman: The Power Battle, one of my favorites.


Title Screen~

Now, when starting up the game, you are presented with a choice, and that's who to start with. The three characters; Megaman, Protoman, and Bass, work near exactly the same, as far as I can tell, gameplay wise. They all can use Master Weapons, charge, and use a dash-like move. Another addition is the wall jump, added from the X Series.
The differences between characters are mainly the dash moves. Megaman has his Slide, Protoman puts his shield forward and dashes, and Bass flies forward for a quick moment.


Character Select Screen~

One thing you'll notice as early as the Character Select, is that graphics-wise, the game isn't too special. It looks much like Megaman 7, enough so that Capcom themselves used Megaman's Power Battle/Fighters sprite instead of the actual MM7 one. However, instead of just having the player face an unchanging set of Masters, you can choose a "course". These courses include:
- Megaman 1-2
- Megaman 3-6
- Megaman 7


Megaman and Protoman fighting Plantman, in Course 3-6~

The course you choose determines the Robot Masters you'll face, as well as weapons and stages. The stages and music will vary between Courses. The game works the same regardless, you select a stage (Note that it's like a roulette, and it's very likely you won't get the one you want until later), and you fight a boss. No, not a level and a boss, just the bosses.


Protoman, after just beating Heatman in Course 1-2~

Once all eight are defeated, you will move on to the "Fortress Stages", which really just mean a Wily Machine, and a subboss (Yellow Devil, Yellow Mini Devils, or Shade Man's Pumpkin). Once you've defeated Wily, you'll be treated to the character's ending, and the credits.


Protoman's Ending~

Now, even though this is a great game, nobody remembers it! However, there's a reason for that. You see, Power Battles, as well as Power Fighters, it's sequel, wasn't widely released outside of Japan. Heck, I only found it in a multi-game (As in 8+ games) cabinet. However, Capcom was nice enough to include ports of both Arcade games in the Megaman Anniversary Collection.

Look forward to more of these articles. I've got a lot of Arcade games to go through.

Yeah, I lack the game and a PS3, so I can't join in on the many Snakegasms. That said, I'll actually have played a MGS game for more than 10 minutes as of Saturday, thanks to the Essential Collection. It's hard for me to admit, but yeah, I've never played a MGS game for longer than 8 minutes.

Regardless, I've Youtube'd the after-credits scene in MGS4. I won't spoil it, though~

But Screwing that, now is time for Golden Boy AMV.


*MGS Party Yaaaaaay!*

Well, time for my first Monthly Musing. Hopefully, it'll be good.

Anyway, If you read the last post I made, I mentioned that I was born in '96, and that my first "true" gaming console was the Gamecube. Which more or less means that I can't really say that the SNES was what got me started, regardless of the fact that I love those games.

Truthfully, my first gaming experience, from what my father is telling me, was sitting on his lap when I was a baby, watching him play games like Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 3 Arena, and those kinds of computer games. Sadly, I don't remember any of this.

What I do remember however, are two games my father played at the points I can remember; those being Final Fantasy 7, and a ROM of Pokemon Red/Blue. Truthfully, these are what got me hooked. I couldn't play through Final Fantasy myself, yet I knew that it was a great game from the save files I played on.

Now, Pokemon was a different story entirely. I loved the entire thing, and I've been playing the games my entire life. It was simple, and with the effect the cartoons had on me, it's not too hard to see that I loved the thing. (Remember that I was about two at this point.) Through that one game, I got into gaming more and more, though it happened slowly.

Enter the Gamecube; my first actual system. By this point, I had played quite a few games, mostly through emulators and ROMS. By this point, the games I played consisted of:
-Sonic
-Mega Man
-Pokemon
-And other things like that.

Yeah, not too impressive. Granted, I was fairly young, and had little to no want to experiment. Farthest away I went was Rayman Arena, if you'd believe me. I even looked over Beyond Good and Evil, because I couldn't figure out what to do. Damn me. Anyway, regardless of that, I was slowly getting into the gaming fold around this time.

If you'd believe it, what really got me into gaming was the internet, specifically Destructoid here. You guys were what made me try out the games I missed out on, and I've got to thank you all for it. You've made Blake a Happy Gamer.

Well, this didn't take long. After the big findings about Sonic Unleashed, SegaON has finally given some information.

No news Storywise, but we now know some important details:

-The game will have 12 levels.
-You will be able to play through as either Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles, Sonic being able to transform into the newly seen Wolf-Sonic (No Shadow, lawls).
-The game is slated for a November release.

Along with these news items, we also have been told that the game is being made with a "huge" production budget, and that the game's greatest purpose is to "Rebuild the Sonic brand and prove it could work in 3D environments", from what the Article is saying.

We also got some concept art of Sonic, and an Earth in pieces. But that's probably not all that important.

(From absolutely not-Joystiq and SegaOn.)

Alright, if you're a fan of Sonic, you may have known that SEGA recently filed a patent for the name "Sonic Unleashed". That was all we knew, up until very recently. Someone went into SEGA's FTP site/server, and in doing so, ended up finding some screenshots, those of a game now identified as "Sonic Unleashed".

Now, these screenshots seem pretty nice actually. It appears that the game may be a bit of a mix of Secret Rings, and the Adventure titles. Some people have said that the game may very well be 2.5D, sort of like the Sonic Rivals games. The Graphics are nice, so there's a chance of the game being on the 360 or the PS3. Some have wondered if the game will be on the Wii as well. But, what we're wondering the most in speculation land, is what purpose this "Were-Sonic" will have.

From screenshots, it seems that Eggman (Robotnik for those Jim and those others that prefer) has finally managed to defeat Sonic in his Super form, and seems to have taken away the ability for the Blue Blur to actually go Super. Speculators have come up with a theory saying that the machine Eggman used to rid Sonic of his Super-ness, actually gave him the ability to "Wolf out", and become the beastly Werewolf Sonic. I suppose we'll just have to find out as time goes on, and SEGA itself reveals information as time goes on.

From SegaOn and Exophase Forums.