Educate Yourself: Destructoid’s Classic Game of the Month Club (Repost)

I figured I'd repost this since yesterday was, well, yesterday and everything got shoved down pretty fast.



Welcome one and all to the first edition/meeting/party/gathering/word-that-means-getting-together-to-do-things-except-doesn’t -really-apply-because-it’s-over-the-internet-and-we-aren’t-actually-meeting of Educate Yourself: Destructoid’s Classic Game of the Month Club. As was stated before, the point of the club is to get us all together to play some classic games that we may have missed due to varying factors—like not being born or not owning the proper system. It happens, we all miss games that we should have played, but hopefully this will give us a chance to go back and play them. Who knows where this will take us or how it will all work out, but I can guarantee that we’ll be playing some really great games.

So how does this club work? Simply and easily (I hope). Basically, at the beginning of each month I’ll choose a game that everyone should have played and that I, most likely, have not played (suggestions are always welcome). Some months it might be a game like Super Mario Brothers, which everyone has probably played and other months might be an obscure classic. The point of this group is to take a look at gaming history and see where we came from. Once you play the game—it doesn’t matter how much—blog about it, write about it in the club’s forum post, ask a question about it to the Failcast guys talk about it with others. Do you love it? Tell us why. Think it’s overhyped? Great, tell us about that. Discover something about gaming you never knew before? Fill everyone in. Don’t want to write anything at all? OK, be that way… jerk.

Every month there will be a new Forum post dedicated to talking about that month’s game. Comments like “This game roxors!!!11!!1” or “Blow me” are welcome there because, and I would like everyone to pay close attention to this, THESE THINGS DO NOT MAKE A BLOG, THEY BELONG IN THE FORUMS. If you’re going to blog about the month’s game think of something clever, insightful, interesting or funny and write more then two sentences about it. These games are going to be true classics; trust me, there will be plenty to talk about. That being said, don’t yell at people if they post about the same thing in a game. If you’re writing for this group, then subjects are always open for discussion even if someone already blogged about it. I’ll also have a bit on Failcast talking about the game and hyping up the club. Even more exciting than this, we’ll have an FNF involving the game each month where we can all play the game while chatting over IRC.

The club will be incredibly easy going. You don’t have to sign up or even tell anyone you’re playing. If you don’t like the game for the month then don’t play it. If you’ve already played a game and don’t need to replay it then this is your chance to write about it with everyone else. It’s very open and very easy. It could end up that I’m the only person playing a game, which will make me feel very lonely, but no one is going to be forced to play from month to month.

As far as getting games goes, I’m going to try to make the games as accessible as possible. The VC and Xbox Live are gold mines of greatness for something like this. At the same time not all games are readily available that way. I’ll also put up links to eBay and the like where you might procure a classic game. Under no circumstances should you click here and go to HarassmentPanda’s emulator and game download page and get the games for free. Educate Yourself does not condone or support the use of these downloads.

At the end of each month I’ll go ahead and do a wrap-up of all the posts that were done about the game, pull some of the best forum comments and then talk a little bit about what I thought of it. So I think that’s it. What it basically comes down to is: play, blog, learn, and have fun. Doesn’t get much simpler then that. Anyway, onto the first months game:



Kid Icarus (NES, 1987)

I chose Kid Icarus for a few reasons. For one, I’ve never played more than the first level and, while I find many people eager to pretend like they’ve played more, if you dig deep enough you find out most others haven’t either. For another, the game is a classic that is still talked about today (despite having only one sequel) and yet who has ever been to the final boss? Hell, who has been to the first boss? With the return of Pit in Brawl, I’ve heard plenty of my friends who knew who Pit was but never played the game that introduced him to the world—kind of a sad state for one of the most enduring NES classics.

I also figured this would be a good starting point because the game is relatively short. Or if it wasn’t so hard it would be relatively short. I’m told you can get through it pretty quick if you’re really, really, really good at video games. If you’re just good at games it might take a bit longer and you might not do it at all. But, just picking up and playing the game as far as you can get should be a lesson enough in a type of gaming that really doesn’t exist anymore but influences games even today. Anyway, it’s a great game to just pick up and play in between your already crowded schedule of games.

So strap on your sandals, bust out your trusty arrows and be prepared to climb from the depths of Hades. Then tell us how it was. Discuss here or blog away.

Where to get it
Wii VC – 500 points
eBay - $1-$12
Amazon - $13-$15
Not Here

What to Write About
I’m not sure if this will be a regular thing but I figured for the first one it’d be nice to give some ideas

Level Design – Forget 200 endings, this game literally gives you a different level depending on how you play it. New pits every time you jump upwards. Today’s PR people would have a field day with this “player based, fully interactive, level progression.”
Sequel? – If this game is so good why hasn’t Nintendo milked it for all it’s worth? They do like to do that. What should it be like? How should it play?
Difficulty – This game is hard. Tell us about it. You can cry on our shoulder.
Eggplant Wizards FTW or FTL?
Best bad guys in the game?
What makes this game a classic or conversely why should we stop thinking of this game as a classic?
Retro Reviews are always fun
Just tell us about your experience with the game. Has it changed your views on gaming, the NES or anything else? What did you learn about game design? What did you like, what did you hate?

That’s just stuff I can think of off of the first level (except for the eggplant wizards) so I’m sure there could be plenty more.

Remember, I’ll be talking about the game on the next FAILCAST, so tune in. We’re scheduled to play on FNF on the 11th. Details on that will be in Snaileb’s FNF post for that week. The key word here is synergy. I’d also like to thank everyone who helped out pulling this together, especially HarassmentPanda who not only made the banner you see above, but also edited my ramblings and is, of course, hosting the download page.