The death and return of tORP (erman)

At some point in the future my semi-sexy site The Obscure Ripping Project will have a few new upgrades. What sort of "upgrades" you ask? Well here's a clue. And another. Because if pictures tell a thousand words and youtube videos show 30 pictures a second then that Donkey Kong video tells 8220000 words. That's like, more than most dictionaries.

I'm taking a page from the book of Hardcore Gaming 101, and will hopefully start hosting some comparison stuffs to those crazy pirate articles as well, rather than one or two screenshots. Who knows, maybe I'll even put in some rips!

Quality of the Youtube vids is rubbish I know. But it's either that or 150MB AVIs, and files that size make me feel uncomfortably small.

SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX

SHPDMBGWL4 GET

It's here. Enjoy it. Visit this topic for more info.

Unfortunately Sitesled decided to delete all my stuff without notifying me, so it's on Sendspace for now.

Game of the Moment - 18/03/08

What? Mickey Mouse?! That's kinda sad isn't it?!? Well yes, yes it is. Sad because Mickey Mania, my current GotM is one of the last Disney games to actually be good. Back in the days where companies like EA didn't invest thousands into hiring voice actors and stuff at the expense of good gameplay - where even Disney could get it right.

Mickey Mania is, in my opinion, the best of the 16 bit Disney titles that came out in the early 90s. It came out for the SNES and MegaDrive, with a graphically updated port on the Playstation and better music and a new level for the Mega CD, but it's the MegaDrive version that I remember as a youngling.

Up until last week I hadn't played this game in probably over 10 years, yet I distinctly remembered the first level. Why is this? Because the game is damn hard. Yes that's right, a HARD Disney game. When I was younger I never made it past the second level. I'm still struggling now, but that's what makes it a worthwile purchase - a sense of challenge.

Anyway Mickey does something that more characters should do, and that's go time travelling to periods in the past to meet other Mickeys for some reason. The above level, which is also the best level, is a Steamboat Willie stage, which starts off in black & white and slowly ends up being colourised. That'll be another thing more games should do.

Okay they say Kingdom Hearts is a good game too but outside of that would you really associate "quality" and "Disney video game" with each other? Because lately I'd say "no". When it comes to Mickey Mania though, I'd certainly say "yes".

New Prototypes

Drx, legend at the Sonic hacking scene has released a good couple hundred Sega prototypes for your pleasure, including Sonic 2 Beta 4 pictured above. It's a collection of pretty much every game revision on Sega's database between 1994 and 1995, which means there's a lot, ranging from the Sega Master System to 32X, and a few Saturn/Dreamcast/Gamecube protos being released as well. Also bear in mind this is probably the biggest batch of prototype releases... ever.

I'm sure drx could use the funds now so why not donate?

Progress Report

SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX has a percentage counter thing which obviously tells you your progress. Mine's 80%... which in my case means that I've programmed in 80% of the game. That also means it should be out and ready to disappoint within the next two months or so.

Also the game's about 25MB compressed right now. That's more than the last three combined.

...and done

http://torp.fateback.com/

Simple yes, but so much easier to work with.

tORP's getting a revamp

Or rather, a "devamp" because I'm scratching its current layout altogether for something much simpler and easier to work with. I'm not doing a great deal with this blog so chances are I'll be using it to post news on our good old friend "The Obscure Ripping Project" as well as current stuffs. Shouldn't be too intrusive though.

Another opportunity to show my greatness

If you're interested that is. Stuffed 407 of my games into Backloggery.com, although you'll obviously have to click this to see. Whether I'll update this thing is another story, but it's slightly better than having a Microsoft Works database.

Either way I'm apparently 6th in the world when it comes to "beating" games...

Got a video this time

...and since I've never needed to use Windows Movie Maker or YouTube before, I've never noticed how unbelieveably crappy videos get. Anyway inspiration has been lost again so consider this something to keep your minds occupied before the final release abuses them.

Downloads update

Took some healthy advice and stored all my little gems on a domain a little bit nicer than Sendspace. Sitesled isn't perfect but it'll save me from having to re-upload everything all the time.

Player Adventure DX
SHPDMBGWL4 1
SHPDMBGWL4 2
SHPDMBGWL4 3
SHPDMBGWL4 Christmas Special

Note that there's bandwidth restrictions, so if thousands of you people decide to have a download fest overnight chances are these might not work. I doubt it'll be much of an issue though.

Shed World

I have created the greatest shoot-em-up of all time.

Well okay, the greatest shoot-em-up would be a one where the five AI players above aren't suicidal, has powerups and you don't spend most of your time shooting flags. But that's shed world for you!

Happy New Year and stuff

Here's a screenshot for you. Now you can seek my advice in SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX as well. Why you'd want to remains a question, since well, I don't give great advice half the time. I also only show up once per game, i.e. you'll need to restart the application to see me a second time.

My advice clinic only appears once you've completed the "normal" part of the game. At the moment it's incredibly difficult to get everything unless you're me, so you might have to resort to asking my crappy character. In other words, you're screwed.

A Christmas Gift

http://www.sendspace.com/file/glxglg

Since there's no chance in hell that I'll waste Christmas day blogging this thing, Merry Christmas in advance. Took the Christmas level off my heavily delayed SHPDMBGWL4 3 Expansion and released it to the public. Enjoy!

By the way - NiGHTS

See, there's a cult classic, often considered the best game on my favourite console the Sega Saturn, coming back. Yeah, it's NiGHTS into Dreams. I've got mixed views on the Wii sequel but what I really need to mention is the somewhat newly-announced PS2 port of the original.

The Japanese have stolen it and don't seem to want to give it to anyone else, but Sega are doing one of the best things they've done since F-Zero GX, and that's port the game over, even if it is to a system on it's way out. They've improved the graphics (although have kept the Saturn version in for no reason whatsoever) but most importantly they've included Christmas NiGHTS - the best Christmas-themed game ever (Sorry Mission In Snowdriftland). I got an import of Christmas NiGHTS for the Saturn last year and I must say it's a very impressive little thing. Doesn't offer much I suppose, just one level with a Christmas theme (although it changes depending on the time of year) but it does offer one of the best easter eggs ever - Sonic into Dreams, the first 3D Sonic game ever (real 3D that is).

I hang out at a Mario forum so I'm surrounded by people who have never played this game. Here's your chance. Miles more interesting than a boring old RPG with the same bunch of anime characters you see in the majority of Japanese-only games.

Hey kids

You know I made the Christmas level for this game back in September. The beginning of September. Back then I had hoped to have it out by my Birthday, now it's doubtful I'll have it out by Christmas. But hey, enjoy a main menu that I implanted the other day. There's more stuff on it, but I'm not revealing what "stuff" that is. You'll have to unlock it when the time comes. This screen's already fooled people into thinking it was Kirby Superstar DS... no I'm not sure how you could really fall for it either.

Luckily for you I may just release the Christmas level separately because it pains me to see you people suffer without some duck-in-tank action.

Haven't posted in a bit

I'll spare you the SSBB rant about that possible Q3 release date and say everyone should get Super Mario Galaxy... because that's what's been stopping me from posting stuff for the last few weeks. Not that I've been particularly inspired to do any blog-worthy stuff anyway, but still, go get that game, 'tis great.

...and the winner for "Best Secrets 2007" is...

TOAD STRIKES BACK

Well I suppose you should expect that really, but thanks anyway. Might have helped if I'd posted the link more publically as well but it's surprising Player Adventure even got nominated!

Lets see if SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX can take the gold next year...

Game of the Moment - 10/11/07

It's a miracle that I managed to get a Nintendo 64 emulator to work on this computer. Even moreso that Project 64 emulates it pretty damn well. So I've been having a second go at Banjo-Kazooie, one of my favourite N64 games of all time and one I'm constantly stealing ideas from in order to make SHPDMBGWL4 3 Ex, which I've somehow managed to plug AGAIN. If you've not played this game then sucks to be you, and in this case, just playing a bit of it at a friend's house doesn't count. BK needs to be played from the beginning because it's practically worthless once you've done everything (sorry, but it is).

If I were ever to go for the video game industry in terms of a job, I'd probably have a try at Rare simply because of this game (and the Donkey Kong ones... and Conker). Banjo-Kazooie is an amazing, well polished (at least on the actual console - Project 64's not to great with the transitions and it doesn't always run at 60fps over here) game that quite frankly, beats the crap out of Super Mario 64 nine times out of ten... sort of. I always thought it was amazing that Midway's Mortal Kombat division made a character out of MK2's ERMAC error - Rareware did something very similar with Banjo-Kazooie, naming a good half-dozen characters in the sequel after insults thrown out by Kazooie or Gruntilda in this game. Mario remains a mute in Super Mario 64, whereas all the characters (and objects) in this communicate with strange noises just for the hell of it. Only other game I can remember off the top of my head that did this was Fur Fighters on the Dreamcast, which even then was changed in the PS2 remake (btw play that as well since that's fantastic too). Grunty speaks in rhymes, everything has eyes... it's tiny things like these that make this game stand out from all your ordinary platformers.

Rare also have a habit of screwing about with the brains of their fans. Over the last 10 years they've been hinting at the hyped but removed Stop 'n' Swop feature which I love for reasons unknown. Yes I was sad enough to raise Shark Food Island and get the pink egg before opening Bubblegloop Swamp (pictured above). To think the game was originally planned to be compatible with Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Tooie... shame they never made a Sonic & Knuckles lock on cartridge.

I won't go into great detail since I know rambling stretches this blog down a bit, but to put it simply, invest in this game if you haven't already. Who knows it might even get on the Wii's virtual console... not to mention Banjo 3's in the works for the Xbox 360. You shouldn't be displeased unless you're trying to be.

And the nominations for "Best Secrets" are...

...PLAYER ADVENTURE

Yeah they've been up for a couple of days now, but I've just noticed Player Adventure (you know, that game I made in ONE day followed by half a dozen sequels of equally crappy quality and seizures) was nominated for the best secrets award at MFGG. It's going against the excellent Toad Strikes Back that's been in development since 2002 and recently got a release at NCFC (You know, probably the best game at MFGG and very close to Nintendo quality). Will it win? Find out on the 19th or whenever. Regardless I'd be a fool not to mention this in SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX, especially considering I've already devoted a large part of that game to pointless jabbering between characters on unrelated subjects.

I also got nominated for best reviewer but I'm not one to brag and you're not likely to care. Obviously though, thanks to everyone who cared enough to vote for me and my creation. I luv u all.

Oh god

Looks like Quackers made a site.

Only reason this exists is because it's a shame to waste it otherwise. It's only a temporary thing mind you. Might get deleted if I run out of bandwidth or space or whatever.