casino zone.
nuff sed
The first resident evil for PS1
Well I got to the lava level in Rayman 2 and was defeated by how stupidly retarded it was. Then I quit and forgot that it wouldn’t save my progress. So I’ve replaced that game back into the game container for a while.
I got selected for the Battlestar Galactica Online Closed Beta, so that MMO is going to be taking some of my time. I spent an hour or so today getting ePSXe working on my Mac and Spyro works like a charm, so I’m going to spend a while playing that.
After that, however, I’ll get stuck right in to the game suggestions here, probably starting with the NES games (and progressing chronologically). I leave on a holiday in about two weeks at which point I’ll have to stop playing, but in the interim I’m hoping to take some large chunks out of the list.
And if I haven’t said so before, thanks for the suggestions! I’m dying a little from the nostalgia, and its proving a welcome distraction from study 
Is it a bad thing when N64 and PSone titles are classified as retro?
I prefer N64 games as classics and PSone games as obsolete (save for a few very excellent titles).
As a side note: I wasn’t impressed with either Tomba adventure, Rayman was a little dull, and Spyro didn’t hold the same charm as any of the N64 platformers. Just call me biased. 
I must say that Spyro has none of the charm of, say, Conker’s Bad Fur Day. But, then again, Spyro’s gameplay is very different; its full of a bunch of short and simple jewel and dragon hunts, whereas Conker’s is far more lols-driven. I suspect a day or two of Spyro and I’ll be done/bored of it; its quite repetitive and the version I have has broken music.
On the bright side, I found Wineskin which runs ePSXe very well. Much better than Winebottler.
I realise its probably not strictly accurate, but for me it feels retro, if by retro we just mean filled with nostalgia.
Nostalgia-Filled is an adequate description. My favorite platformers were Donkey Kong 64, Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Rayman 2, and Bomberman Heroes. Had some good times with these games. Haven’t played Conker yet, but it’s on my radar now that I have the Xbox remake. No one made platformers like Rare, you know?
I’m sad though that the 3D platformer genre pretty much died, along with vehicular combat. You know nothing beats Vigilante 8, Twisted Metal, and BattleTanx.
BattleTanx needs a proper remake like yesterday.
SNES: 1st Hook, 2nd James Pond
N64: 1st Snowboard kids (2), 2nd Paper Mario, 3rd Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
In those orders. Great obscure games in my opinion, even if hook is brutally frusterating. I had snowboard kids one, so that is the nostalgia piece for me, but snowboard kids 2 really is the better game imo.
Alright, I encountered a game breaking bug in Spyro that prevents me from completing a number of levels in the dream world. While I could struggle through and try to complete what I can, I’m putting this down to a corrupted ISO and will look into re-downloading it in the future. I completed the game to 71% (allegedly), so I think I can speak for it pretty well. In the mean time, I’ve written down my thoughts on the first two games (feel free not to read them; its just my musings):
Rayman 2
Liked: Rayman!!!
Dialogue and voices (even if the PC version ones are just random garbled words), simple premise which allows for all the levels to be easily stringed together.
Different ways of getting through levels that make it interesting (like the snake monster and raindancing friend).
A reasonable variety in levels. There was no repetition so evident in other games like, say, Spyro, for instance.
Didn’t Like: The lava level. Dear god, they could not have designed a more annoying level if they’d tried. This was actually the deal breaker for me; I lost about an hour on this level and didn’t have the heart to go back.
The single weapon. As fun as the energy ball is, it gets a bit boring after a while. Other platformers mix it up with a variety of different ways to kill enemies, whereas here there’s only one.
Spyro
Liked: He’s a tiny dragon. What’s not to like? Oh, that’s right. Most things.
The dragonfly. I liked him (Sparks?), mostly because he gave you lives (effectively) and helped pick up things. When he temporarily died I realised how much I’d relied on him to collect those damn crystals. He was probably the only thing that made it even slightly bearable.
Good clean fun. Most of the levels are quite short and can be dealt with in a matter of minutes, rather than hours. This ensures variety in the levels and a game that you can get through in a number of days, rather than weeks. That’s good for a platformer with such a limited premise and so much repetition, and makes it alright.
Didn’t Like: The amount of crystals. Jesus. Divide by 10 or something. Going into a level and having to collect 500 of those fuckers is ridiculous. Especially when 90-95% of them are ridiculously easy to find, and the remaining 5-10% are stupidly hard. It effectively involves you not only killing every single enemy on the entire map, but also scouring the back of every pillar, wall and cliff face to find the last three of them. Christ almighty, EASE OFF A LITTLE.
I liked mixing up the head butting and fire breathing, but I kept wanting something more. Almost every enemy is a one hit kill, and it ends up just being a bit repetitive. Even the enemies that you’re told to hit with special moves like the super charge can be killed just by flaming, so there’s no real challenge for most of the game. And most of the challenge comes from the frustration.
Level design where they deliberately wanted you to go off the edge of the game where it really looks like you shouldn’t go. In a few levels I just flew aimlessly around before realising that there wasn’t an invisible wall blocking me from going off the edge of the screen. Then, just after jumping with glee after thinking that I’d hacked the game, I saw the crystals. Fucking. Hell.
The lives system works well enough most of the time, forcing you to actually take care and work through levels systematically, but it ends up being a massive fucking pain when you get to the more frustrating levels. In a few of the levels you have to charge a number of enemies that stand perilously close to the edge, and which can hit you off, meaning that if you mis-time your charge even a little you’ll be back at the beginning (or your last save). Do that more than a few times and you’re gone. Successful implementation of the lives system was predicated on good level design and gameplay focus that did more than just make things frustrating, which it doesn’t do here.
The dash-jumping puzzles, especially in the Tree Tops level. This is mostly a lives-system complaint, but its also a frustration-inducing complain. Someone, please, destroy this level.
Anyway, I’m going to start with the NES games. Will post as I play them!
Needs another sequel, not a remake. Course, 3DO has been under for quite some time. 
I don’t think either of those games are considered obscure.
Turok was awesome. Hands down. Just sayin’