Post for: #retro games ^{(41 Posts)}

Beetlejuice came to theaters in 1989, and while I didn't see it on the big screen, I caught it as soon as it came to our local VHS rental place. It was the perfect mix of creepy, funny and fun to get me absolutely hooked. We eventually got an action figure line from Kenner, makers of the wonderful Real Ghostbusters toy line, as well as a cartoon show that took quite a few liberties with the source material to make it work, but I still found it enjoyable, especially since it made Beetlejuice and Lydia the main stars, not to mention that great opening with Danny Elfman's score!

So of course with any hot franchise kids were into in the 80s, there were video games as well, and while none of them were fantastic, they had enough Beetlejuice charm in them to keep me happy. Two of the three I'll go over I enjoyed from my childhood, while the third I'm coming at with a completely fresh take.

There's been a couple more games I've played through in my backlog since my blogging about Little Nemo and The Guardian Legend. Next on my sights was a game that I'd wanted to play through for a long time now, the last Konami TMNT game for the Game Boy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue. Released in 1993, this was a pretty late title in the original TMNT's popularity, with Turtlemania dying down quite a lot since 1989. That being said, I was still a big ninja turtle fan, I mean I never really have stopped. But I remember seeing this game on shelves when it was new, in Electronics Boutique back in the day, and while I debated getting it, I just didn't want to part with my hard earned allowance, which is crazy looking back considering this probably retailed new for $30 at the time! Game Boy games were pretty inexpensive!

Retro Puzzle Maker is an amazing little free game engine. It's a web-based tool that allows you to make Sokoban style games that output as playable NES ROM files. The engine is code-free and any beginner can use it, and while means that while you can't change much in terms of the type of game you're making, there are some variations to the level goals you can select and a robust level editor to make the game feel like a creation that you yourself have made.

In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo was firmly against video game rentals. Big name video rental places like West Coast Video and Blockbuster were stocking NES, and later, SNES games, and so were all the mom and pop rental places of the day. It was big business, and I don't know of any video rental place that didn't carry at least some video games, no matter how small the store. And that's saying something, because video rental places were absolutely everywhere back then, especially before Blockbuster came along and put all the independent ones out of business. According to a 1994 article from Billboard, Nintendo was finally ready to talk business with rental places, allowing them to buy direct and save some money. They were still planning on going to Congress to push for making game rental illegal, however. But in just a year, they would partner with Blockbuster to make the Blockbuster Video Game Championships. And a year later, with the Blockbuster Video Game Championships II, they would even have a custom-made Donkey Kong Country game made for the tournament (Okay, so they didn't make this JUST for the Blockbuster tournament, I believe this was reused from Nintendo's 1994 PowerFest)! And when I heard about that championship, with a game that I considered myself to be quite good at, I decided I had to enter, and I had to win!

Like I wrote about with my post on playing Little Nemo on NES, I was inspired by a video Hungry Goriya posted on YouTube about 9 NES games you should play. I've made my way through the 2nd of the 7 I plan to tackle (as two of them I'd already played through). This time I tried out The Guardian Legend, and boy was I in for a surprise. When it came to Little Nemo, I had played that through rentals a few times as a kid, and had tried it again a few times through emulation as and adult. This one though, I was playing for the first time ever. And I've got to admit, I was blown away.

This is just a short post to talk about one of my favorite let's plays that I've watched over the years. It might sound weird to have a favorite let's play video, not a favorite YouTuber or anything, but this particular let's play series that tackles Jurassic Park: Trespasser is just so well done and interesting that every couple of years I find myself watching the whole thing again! The person doing the video, Research…