Army Men: Air Attack

On January 19, 2020January 23, 2020 By evanescentgamingexpIn PCLeave a comment

Army Men: Air Attack was the first and last Army Men game that I came in contact with. The game left a lasting impression on me because of how fun and detailed it was in comparison to my make believe games with toy soldiers. In addition, the game had a cooperative mode (one of the first PC games I came across to do so) that was extremely fun for me and my sister.

Green Army Plastic Figurines

The game was based off the toy action figurines that I played with as a boy. The Green Army “good guys” were up against the Tan Army “bad guys.” The result was an endless war between the two colored factions. Both sides had the exact same models being used with the only difference being color. There were the regular riflemen, bazooka troops, jeeps, tanks, and helicopters available for both sides. However, the Tan Army usually had some secret nefarious top secret technology to deploy to the battlefield. During the imagine games with the plastic toy soldiers, the size of the army usually depended on how many models you collected for both factions.

Unfortunately, for me I had only a small kit of Green Army soldiers without any helicopters. However, that did not stop me from supplementing my existing Green Army with other toy helicopters not from the Green Army collection. I used a remote controlled helicopter as a stand in for my non-existent Green Army helicopter. I also used other toys such as Hot Wheels cars and Legos to help diversify the various scenarios I made up. My favorite scenario was a Green Army’s equivalent of D-Day that was a complete copy of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. I would have the Green Army soldiers run up the styrofoam beaches while being attacked by plastic machine guns in Lego pillboxes. Yet despite all the creative ways I was able to use my toys I still felt something missing.

When I came across Army Men Air Attack I figured out what was missing, a challenge. In my make believe scenarios I always had the Green Army win regardless of the various obstacles they faced. However, in a computer game the real possibility of losing made the games more exciting. Here was a computer game that made my battle scenarios come to life. Even better, it presented the battle scenarios that others had made. I got to see the whole battle unfold in a dynamic environment from my top down view as a helicopter pilot in-game.

In Game Mechanics and Layout

Every time you started up the game there was an introduction that played. The screen displayed a black and white film with a countdown like you see in those old war films. The film describes the Tan Army menance and how the Green Army is preparing to defend itself with its new air force of helicopters. The game film transitions from black and white to colored as the helicopters take off and fly from the kids room into the distance (beyond the window). The game then cuts to the main menu displaying a Green Army tank base in the woods.

Before starting every mission you are brought to a green briefing screen that details your objectives for that mission. On this same screen you are given the option to choose your helicopter and pilot. The helicopters available are the Huey, Chinook, Super Stallion, and Apache.
– Huey: From the good old days of Vietnam. Basic helicopter that you start out with. Quick, but lightly armored.
– Chinook: Suppose to be a transport helicopter, but somehow the game magically gives it the ability to fire bullets and missiles. Slower, but tougher. True to its real life counterpart, the helicopter is better able to carry objects with the winch.
– Super Stallion: Another transport helicopter that the game somehow gives upgraded weapons systems. Has better mobility than Chinook and more firepower than the Huey.
– Apache: Modern US attack helicopter with all the offensive armament you need. Reflected in the game by being the last helicopter you unlock. Has the best stats in the game.

The pilots available are Woodstock, Hardcore, Rawhide, plus an additional unlockable character. I never significantly noticed what benefits the different pilots gave.
– Woodstock: Glasses wearing, Black afro dude. Suppose to give machine gun perks.
– Hardcore: Bionic man with the one glass eye. Perks for homing missiles.
– Rawhide: Stereotypical cowboy. Somehow his lasso skills are analogous to using the helicopter winch.

Once in game the helicopter remained at a fixed height above the battlefield. The WASD keys moved the helicopter forward, back, and side-to-side. Your primary attack is the machine gun that shoots out an unlimited number of bullets towards the enemy. Your secondary special attack depends on your selection at the bottom left side of the screen. These special attacks provided you with a variety of options from missiles to napalm. Unlike your primary machine gun, secondary special attacks have a limited munitions count. Your E key has the important function of deploying a winch. When you press the key the winch is deployed down and attaches to the first object it comes across. You can fly with the object attached, but your speed is significantly lowered while doing so. Pressing the E key again drops the attached object and retracts the winch.

The Green Army units, our allies, are mostly green colored soldiers, jeeps tanks, and helicopters. However, the enemy units in game have a larger diversity of possible color palettes. Besides the units that are carbon copy tan army units (same as the Green Army just colored differently), there are insects (ants, bees, flies), RC cars, battleships, rockets (these hurt quite a bit), cannons, and even RC robots. Some of these enemies are extremely dangerous (such as the rockets). Other types of enemies pose little to no threat (regular infantry).

The Storyline

Army Men: Air Attack comes from a long tradition of single-player only games that have become more rare as multiplayer has come to dominate the market. The game is designed as a set of specific missions for you and or your friend to play. The additional cooperative partner has no impact on the story. Each mission starts off with vocals from either the Green/Tan Army as soon as you spawn in. In the case of the Green Army the vocals you will hear are from the General, Sarge, and the pilots. For the Tan Army you will hear the streotypical evil voice of their General. The unique scenairo then unfolds, in which you will have to use your skill as a helicopter pilot to achieve victory. Once the victory conditions are fulfilled the game will zoom in on your helicopter and rotate the camera in a 360 degree motion while the Green/Tan Army soldiers comment on your actions.

The first mission is simple enough. Destroy the Tan Army forces attacking the Green Army base. Once the Tan Army troops and tanks are neutralized, carry the Green Army shipment into the portal. The second mission is more challenging as it is a timed attack mission. In this second scenario the Tan Army are deploying weaponized toy cars into the portal. The goal is to stop the cars before enough of them get into the portal. Once you destroy the cars’ spawning buildings, the rest of the mission is easy.

Later on you will have the joy of freeing imprisoned insects and carrying donuts to tan army bases. Unfortunately, the insects on later levels are mostly hostile. Ants are also featured on a few missions, with one of the mission objectives to destroy anthills by using cherry bombs. While the insects become mostly hostile in the second half of the game, there are still some notable allies. A laser shooting UFO comes to your aid on one mission, while a rampaging teddy bear leads the way in another.

A few more notable missions include: using a green crayon to change tan army soldiers into green army soldiers, protecting a teddy bear as it flows downstream, saving Sarge from a deadly magnify glass laser, and powering radar stations by transporting batteries. However, the last mission remains the most memorable mission. As expected for the finale, there is a boss in the form of a RC robot. At the start, the robot is invincible all types of attacks due to its electrical shields. The shield is powered by battery stations located throughout the map. The only way to destroy the batteries is to get a cherry bomb from one of the randomly passing tan army trucks. Only after you destroy all the battery stations, can you start unloading on the main RC robot. Defeating the RC robot results in the final animation of the game with the Green army Huey destroying the robot and Green army soldiers hoisting the flag over its charred remains.

First Coop Mode

Army Men Air Attack had the additional benefit of being the first coop game I had come across. Previous games my sister and I played often had one of us backseat gaming. This game was the first experience we both had with split screen computer gaming. Perhaps that is why I have such fond nostalgia for the game. I remember playing with the left side of the keyboard (WASD) while my sister played with the right side (arrow keys). The split screen interaction completely blew me away. The only other games that had similar multiplayer gameplay were NASCAR driving games and Super Smash Bro Melee. It was amazing to see our helicopter duo flying into action just like in the movies.

Particular levels made ridiculously easy by the coop mode were escort and defend the base levels. Escorting Sarge and the runway troops/scientists is a lot easier when you have double helicopter over watch. One helicopter flies ahead and clears the path while the other helicopter hovers over the VIP. Defending the base from ants is also easy with one helicopter dropping the cheery bombs onto the ant hills while the other shoots at the incoming ant waves.

Yet the one level that the both of us often struggled with was the final boss. The amount of firepower and anti aircraft fire (AA) that was being fired at us made the computer lag. The first time we reached the level we made the stupid mistake of constantly attacking the RC robot directly. We could not understand why it refused to die even after we dumped all our rockets and napalm on it. Later through process of elimination, we discovered that we had to reduce the RC robot’s shields first. The strategy was for one of us to distract the RC robot, while the other frantically attacked tan army trucks to look for cherry bombs to drop on the batteries. Unfortunately, the withering amount of AA fire made the distractor die way too quickly. So instead both of us went chasing the tan army trucks hoping to get as many cherry bombs as possible. Luckily for us, this blind dash for the finish technique actually worked and we were greeted with the final animation.

Spyfox 2: Some Assembly Required

On March 11, 2019 By evanescentgamingexpIn PCLeave a comment

The title comes from the usual phrase you see on boxes for merchandise.

Another classic child CDrom game was the Spyfox game, Some Assembly Required. The Spyfox series was another game from Humongous Entertainment along with the Pajama Sam and Freddie Fish game series. Just like the other series, I had a splendid time playing the game.

The game took on an appearance as the bastardized version of the James Bond franchise. We have our main character, Spy Fox, being the witty, comedic, and composed hero. He almost never is seen losing his cool and takes on each situation with his own combination of puns and phrases. He is every bit as charming as James Bond except without the sexual relations with female companions (It is a children’s game). In regards to the female companions, Monkey Penny (The game’s play on Moneypenny) drops by from time to time via the spy watch to give tips and progress the story, but there is not “bond girl.” The gadget providing Q is renamed Quack and is portrayed as a duck in the game. His role is mostly isolated to explaining the various gadgets he provides for you in the vending machine. I struggle to remember, but some of the gadget examples are robotic ice skating shoes, fingerprint utensil reader, temperature spray, and stink bomb. Each of the devices provided is vital to progressing the story.

Game’s Plot – SPOILERS Below!

The game starts with Spyfox receiving secret information from another agent regarding the plans of S.M.E.L.L.Y. Spyfox then escapes from a group of pursuers sent by the evil organization by ski jumping from into a moving plane. The bad guys are stuck at the edge of the snow cliff shaking their fists in frustration that Spyfox managed to outwit them. Unfortunately, for one of the bad guys, his buddies from behind also slide down the slope and knock him off the cliff. Meanwhile, safe and sound on the airplane, Spyfox talks to his boss about the contents of the SMELLY package. The package contains a scaled down version of a dog bot that was meant to be sent to Napoleon Le Roach, the evil villain of the game. It is up to Spyfox to go to the World’s Fair where Napoleon Le Roach is to figure out the evil mastermind’s plan.

The game then moves to the secret base Spyfox and his companions have set up in the parking lot of the World’s Fair. Here the player gears up with Quack’s devices and a fake ID card before heading towards the World’s Fair. Once the ID card is perfected, the security guard lets you use the elevator that takes you to Napoleon Le Roach himself. Our first look at the main antagonist of the game is in a dining room. He has the appearance of a green-skinned midget donning military attire. The obvious inspiration for this dramatic appearance is the historical figure, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was often depicted as a short midget in political cartoons. This is a historical inaccuracy however, as Napoleon Bonaparte was of average height for his time.

In typical villain fashion, Napoleon Le Roach gloats about his evil plan to use the World Fair’s turnstiles to power up his gigantic dog bot. Then, he imprisons Spyfox in the giant dog bot’s mouth (Of course leaving him alive like any good Bond villain does). However, inside the mouth of the dog bot, a tooth has a loose panel dangling in front of it. Manipulating the panel opens the dog bot’s mouth and allows Spyfox to escape to the main grounds of the fair below.

The rest of the game focuses on specific exhibitions of the World’s Fair and the specific items you need to get from them. For example, there is an ice skating rink that gives you a specific item needed later on. To successfully complete this stage, Spyfox needs to talk to a massage therapist that will remark on her previous amazing ice skating skills. This hint is to use the Quack’s special skating shoes to take the therapist’s winning routine and win the skating competition. Another exhibition is the wax museum. Here you can get another vital item needed to progress the story. However, to get the said item you need to get past the guard and security system. The camera can be tricked by placing a museum postcard in front of the camera. The guard can be tricked by using a device to raise the temperature of the thermometer in front of the museum causing him to run to get the HVAC specialists. In another exhibition is the scientific cloning lab which you use to make two copies for another item. The aquarium in the World’s Fair is the scene for an interaction between a pill bug and goldfish that progresses the story as well.

All the items that you collect as well as eat (entrance breathalizer requires a specific food smell) enable you to enter the dog bot, which triggers a cutscene with Le Roach’s gloating about how close the dog bot is getting towards one million customers (the number of customers needed to move the whole dog bot). Once you complete enough actions inside the dog bot, the final path to the deactivation switch comes within sight. Unfortunately, at the same time the last of the one million customers goes through the turnstile allowing Le Roach to go on a godzilla tear through the park. Fortunately, Spyfox is just minutes away from the activation switch. The prompt push of the stop button brings the dog bot down into a sitting position. However, the games has not ended yet.

Le Roach takes off in a hover craft to run to another base. Spyfox is in hot pursuit on a hovercraft as well (more like hoverboard because of how small the vehicle is). A quick run down the manhole opening brings Spyfox to Le Roach’s underground sewage base. From here Le Roach plans to spawn destructive rainclouds over the world’s fair. Those plans are short lived though as through a bit of tinkering with the sewage pipes and opening the drain, Spyfox flushes Le Roach down the drain. Magically through physics defying science, Le Roach is flushed directly into a prison cell.

Kid’s Point and Click Adventure

The game’s story and the Spyfox series as a whole was memorable to me because of its quirky take on the James Bond series. At the time I was an avid fan of Sean Connery’s James Bond. My parents had the VHS cassettes for a few of the movies such as From Russia with Love and Golden Finger. I watched them constantly and was always impressed by Q’s unique gadgets. To see a cartoon rendition of something similar help the story of the game stick to my mind.

Spyfox 2: Some Assembly Required was also another Humongous Entertainment game in my collection of point and click adventures. Like the other games by the company, Spyfox 2 was appropriate for its targeted age. Word prompts to different possible solutions to advance the game were clearly enunciated. Players had access to Spyfox’s watch to get possible hints if stuck and to district themselves with space shooter minigame. The watch also served as a main menu if the player wanted to save/load the game.

Might even be better than the main game.

I had a great time with the space fighter mini game and remember spending more than an hour being stuck on it. Unlike the main game where there was no real significant challenge once the story was done, the mini game presented you a gradual increase in difficulty as well as the an actual game over system. Similar to the regular space shooter arcade game, you start off with three lives (as indicated visually by the number of fighters on the bottom right). The screen was set so that there was free movement along a flat x-y plane, but no 3D. Objects such as asteroids and alien space craft came in from the top of the screen and travelled downward. On contact with either asteroid or alien space ship, your fighter immediately exploded resulting in the loss of one of your lives. Your ship could fight back with three possible armaments: pulse beam, explosive shot, or laser whip. Each of these armaments could be upgraded three times for better impressive damage. The best by far was the red triple shot explosive. Unlike the pulse beam that just got bigger, but still hit in a straight line or the green laser whip that was mostly close range until better upgrades, the red shot explosive had a blast effect that helped to remove smaller asteroids from the screen. Upgraded to max, the number of explosive blasts shot out increase to three enabling a fireworks display on the screen. The red triple shot explosive was key in enabling me to achieve the highest score.

The game barely punished for the player for failing a task. If the task impossible was to do without completing a set of prerequisites the game’s main character often provided hints by speaking to the player. There were also set animations that highlighted to the player what they did wrong if they failed to complete a prior prerequisite, often accompanied by soundbite hinting what the player needs to do to get the right action. Thanks to these handholding mechanics it was very difficult to “lose” the game as there was no specific set time limit and failed actions often could be repeated without consequence.

However, there was one distinct moment where the game animated a possible game over. During the Spyfox-Le Roach chase on hover craft, Le Roach runs down a manhole in the ground. Spyfox follows only if you click on the opening to the manhole in time. If you fail to do so Spyfox flies past the manhole into some furniture carrying lifters. I remember being completely caught off guard by this “game over” as much of the game was pretty much safe. I spent a good 5 – 10 minutes to figure out that you had to click on the manhole opening during the animated first person view.

Fun Game with Mini game for Replay Value

The game is one that I would definitely recommend for young audiences. The cartoonish look as well as the easy prompts make the game an enjoyable experience that I recall fondly on to this day. Comedy plus spies is perfect for have the dual role of the fun and professional, but not too serious edge (similar to the movie Spykids). The game even gives you a certificate at the end for capturing Napoleon Le Roach (participation medal concept I guess). For added fun the mini game on the spy watch will have arcade lovers play for hours on end.

Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo

On February 24, 2019February 28, 2019 By evanescentgamingexpIn PCLeave a comment

One of the classic old computer games that I still remember tidbits of quite fondly is Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo with its main character being a car with a dog as a cooperative companion. The TLDR version of the game is exactly what the title says, Putt-Putt goes and saves the zoo. The point and click adventures as well as the minigames throughout the park aids with the story completion.

The game starts with Putt-Putt meeting an older yellow car before heading off towards the zoo. He meets a farmer looking tractor trailer with a ten-gallon hat along the way before coming to zoo’s entrance (the one with a giant “zoo” sign). At the zoo, Putt-Putt first comes a food truck with an unlimited supply of specific foods. Later on, there is also an option to change color at the pain shack. The food truck has what appears to be an unlimited amount of snacks. However, one specific food, hot cocoa, is storable in the car as it later serves as an important item. Closeby to the entrance is also a map of the zoo that is broken into three different areas: polar ice caps, savanna, and jungle. across a map that breaks down the zoo into different specific areas.

By the far, the most memorable area for me was the polar cold area. I remember warming up the snake with the hot cocoa, which made the snake change color and get off the ice. There was also the fun of see Putt-Putt sliding along the ice as a car. The polar area also had a puzzle where you had to connect the pieces of the ice together to build a bridge for a hippo stuck on the iceberg. The most frustrating part of the ice area was the polar bear hockey game where you had to use your mouse to control Putt-Putt against the polar bear. The game felt really gimmicky during that part, and the puck was hard to hit with the mouse’s weird sensitivity.

The savannah and jungle areas are less clear and memorable to me. The only particular part I remember was trying to save a feline cat stuck above a waterfall. Using Putt-Putt’s amazing radio wire antenna to grab and manipulate the environment, we safely brought the cat down. Once the objectives of the three areas are completed, the farmer tractor trailer returns to present Putt-Putt with a badge for his efforts as well as the opportunity to cut the ribbon to open the park to others.

The game was memorable for me in how Putt-Putt, an object that in real life could not be imagined as animated, was personified as the do-good hero. With him leading the way and helping out the various residents of the zoo, the zoo was able to prepare in advance for the “Grand opening.” Looking back on it now, having all the characters as vehicles probably appealed to the American audience with its suburbian trends. However, as a city kid, I ended up walking and using the train more, though that did not detract from my fun in-game experience.

The environment of the zoo was easier for me to believe in than the extraterrestrial environment of Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, another game in the series that I enjoyed far less. It is a game that I am not going to review on this website because I have close to no memories about it save the one part where Putt-Putt collects rocket parts to go into space.

Yu-Gi-Oh Dark Duel Stories

On February 11, 2019February 11, 2019 By evanescentgamingexpIn GameBoy ColorLeave a comment

Around the same time I got caught up in the Pokémon craze, there was another equally massive craze taking over the nation. Unlike Pokémon, the game centered around a children’s card game, thus allowing a direct translation into real life. The series was named after its main character, Yugi, and would go on to spawn multiple arcs and spinoffs. Like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh continues to be a popular series with new generations being introduced to the game every year.

My first exposure to Yu-Gi-Oh came from Kids WB11 as well. Public channel Saturday morning cartoons had a trend of introducing me to some of my most beloved series. The first episode remains distinct in my memory. Dark Yugi defeats rich boy, Seto Kiba, by using the legendary Exodia to obliterate all three Blues Eyes White Dragon monsters on the field. This is closely followed up by Maximillion Pegasus taking the soul of Yugi’s grandfather after almost losing to Yugi. This sets the stage for Yugi’s call to adventure into Pegasus’ card game tournament.

TV Entertainment Meets Reality

Unfortunately, just like Pokémon, the show’s rules were nothing at all similar to the game. It can even be argued that the show’s depiction of the card game was especially misleading because of how vague they were with the rules. Some cards were given exaggerated effects or were overhyped (Usually the protagonist’s cards or whatever big baddie they were facing for the episode). Other cards were downplayed or barely showed at all, perhaps due to their mood killing or lame abilities. However, in the show characters would routinely be blustering in confidence, showing off their “unique” cards as if their strategy was foolproof. For example, in the first episode, Yugi takes on Kaiba but is backed into a corner when Kiba has 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons on the field. On the field, Kiba is full of pride and gives the typical gloating mannerism exhibited by every antagonist ever. Then, he gets his grin wiped off his face when Yugi summons Exodia the Forbidden One and wins the game in one turn. While the episode looked great on TV, a careful analysis would show that Kaiba played a pretty mediocre game. All three of his Blue-Eyes White Dragons could have just as easily been destroyed by a Dark Hole spell card or another alternative spell card like Raigeki. If going for a more subdued approach, the trap card, Dragon Capture Jar or Gravity Bind would have been more than adequate. Yet spell and trap cards are often lacking on the TV series as the show prefers to focus more on the cool monster cards.

Another issue with the TV series is the ever-changing rules to the game. In the first season, both players are given 2000 life points (LP) to work with. Later on, this number is raised to 4000 LP. However, with the card games at tournaments, both players are given 8000 LP. The real card game tournaments also feature an extensive ban list due to the ridiculously OP nature of some of the cards. This list is dynamic and changes with the introduction of new cards and playstyles.

In addition, the TV series often have duels that are chock full of BS logic. A quick example that comes to mind is the duel between Mako and Yugi in the first season. The environment of the beach is used in the episode to play to Mako’s favor. With the sea environment, he can “hide” his monsters so that the opposing player cannot see them. Yugi fruitlessly tries to “defeat” Mako by summoning his monster cards in attack mode, even though he cannot attack because of the sea environment. Yugi’s second attempt tries to use the lightening of the feral imp to kill the sea monsters. But Mako counters with a Jellyfish monster that enables him to “absorb” the lightning. However, Yugi later wins by purposely destroying his own moon spell card with his Giant Soldier of Stone, thus draining the ocean. Does this sound like absolute baloney to you? It should because there are so many inaccuracies and poor plays here to make your head spin. Yugi botches up by repeatedly playing weak monsters in attack mode despite the fact that he knows that he cannot attack the Mako’s sea monsters. The feral imp lightning attack is also complete BS as the feral imp is label as a Dark monster card and attributes are not suppose to even manner in the game’s rules (except when boosting with spell or trap cards). Last but not least, the Giant Soldier of Stone should not be able to destroy a spell card as there is no such special effect mentioned on the card. Unfortunately, the whole TV series is littered with duels similar to this one. It is no wonder that in the TV series the cards often do not have their descriptions on them.

Playing a Children’s Card Game

When playing the card game in real life provided a more overwhelming experience. Specialized decks could burn through your life points without ever even needing to summon a monster. Other decks were so stacked with trap and spell cards that sometimes entire duels revolved around the second row instead of the first. My experience as a duelist was rather short-lived due to my small pool of friends. The peak of my duels occurred in elementary school, specifically in 5th and 6th grade. This period of dueling regularly during lunch was only possible thanks to Jeffery and Ivy.

Jeffery’s deck almost always won a match because his deck was specifically created with an excellent balance of flip effect cards, trap and spell cards. His monster cards were also specifically selected for their effects that worked in conjunction with his deck. Other decks such as mine tended to revolve around preset cards because we got the starter deck packs from the stores. Ivy’s deck was more simple as she did not move too far away from her starter deck. However, she did use some booster packs to give her deck a special edge. The most memorable part of her duel was her tendency to yell, “I kill you!” while stabbing out with the middle finger. She ended up using that as a common slogan because she loved the comedy skit by Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Her victories were usually followed up with a taunt of some kind.

My Only Yu-Gi-Oh Handheld Console Game

Unfortunately, the poor transition in the rules on TV also translated to the GameBoy Color’s poor display of the game. Yu-Gi-Oh Dark Duel Stories had the 8bit look of a Yu-Gi-Oh card game except that it lacked the second row for spell and trap cards. All it had was a display for monster cards and cards in your hand. It was quite disconcerting to be unable to set down spell or trap cards like in the real-life games. Because of this inability to set down trap cards, you were denied the opportunity to use trap cards during the enemy’s attack phase. In addition, spell cards primarily focused on increasing life points, increasing monster attack/defense or destroying monster cards. There was no room for the more complex spell and trap cards. This setup of a limited number of spell and trap cards left most games a battle of monster cards. I had significant difficulty early on because the cards you were given in your deck are weak and barely above 1500 attack points.

However, for all the game’s flaws, it was unique in that it closely follows the story quite well for a GameBoy Color game. When released in North America in 2002 the game was even ahead of the TV series because in North America we were still seeing the Duelist Kingdom arc. The first area of duelist comprises of duelists that are classified as “weak.” In other words, duelists such as Tristan and Joey (In the TV series, Joey is a wildcard that sometimes plays really well to be considered part of the big three, and other times plays horribly). The second area has characters introduced from the second season in Duelist City such as Espa Roba, and Paradox, in addition to old classics such as Rex and Weevil. The third area has ancient Egyptian characters such as Ishizu and Kiba (Pharoh form). The last boss character is the “Dark Nite,” a character never introduced on the TV series. After a few victories against the DarkNite, you unlock the secret boss Yami Yugi.

The game also had a weird option in that cards would be fused without polymerization just be stacking them on top of each other. This was especially cool for me early on because I would experiment as much as possible to see which cards I could stack fused together and what I would get. Sometimes I would discover cool new combinations that I never had seen before. Usually, in the TV series, you needed the polymerization card to summon a fusion monster (that changed later on with the elemental heroes introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh GX).

Note the numbers on the bottom left.
One of Yugi’s classic cards, they later revamped it in later editions to make it more relevant to the meta.

Being the child I was, the game presented a significant challenge to me because of how it was so different from what I saw in the school cafeteria. Most of the monster cards that you start with were usually weak and below 1000 attack points. The poor early card selection meant that you often had to spam duels with the lower ranking characters to keep getting a random chance of getting a good card. Sometimes you lost, sometimes you won. However, there was a trick in the game that allowed you to get some of the stronger cards right away. Real life Yu-Gi-Oh cards had a small serial number on the bottom left of the card that you could input into the game’s passcode option in the main menu to get that exact card. It was thanks to this trick that I was able to the Celtic Guardian and La jinn the mystical genie of the lamp early. Unfortunately, some of the codes for some cards failed to work. Most of the classic cards such as the Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon did work. The rest of the better cards were achieved through hours of grinding.

The game was entertaining. However, the overall experience was frustrating. The rules were completely not according to the even the TV series as there was a distinct lack of a spell and trap card section. Descriptions about specific cards were poor leaving you mostly guessing about their abilities. Fusions were achieved by randomly stacking cards on top of one another. If your fusion failed the card that you placed on top of the original would destroy the original. Grinding involved repeated attempts to beat certain hard characters as well as repeated victories against weak characters for the random card generator. The poor gameplay made me never want to buy Yu-Gi-Oh handheld consoles games.

Pokémon Yellow Version

On February 5, 2019February 8, 2019 By evanescentgamingexpIn GameBoy ColorLeave a comment

I was instantly captivated by the glittering rainbow of the Nintendo Gameboy Color. A gift from my parents, the Gameboy Color and its Pokémon Yellow version would play a major role in my love for video games. I would play the Gameboy Color constantly during weekends, after prep school, after completing my homework on weekdays, on family road trips, and during summer school. The distinct shape of the rectangular Gameboy Color with its D-pad, A & B button, and start & select button was etched into my mind.

The Beginning of a Long Journey

I started the game with a Pikachu exactly like Ash in the TV episodes. After greeting and leaving Professor Oak’s lab, I moved towards the first gym. On the way, I captured a Ratata and a Pidgey. I was quite a fool back then. I never really quite worked out the stat mechanics. Cue the often sad attempts to spam the attack button after getting hit constantly by “sand attack.” In fact, as an immature kid, I believed that attack moves that did no damage were useless. As a result, I ended up deleting stat affect moves such as growl and harden (unless I had a Metapod, then that was the only move I had). This caused me a lot of grief in the first gym battle against Brock.

This man never opens his eyes. He can literally beat you with his eyes closed.

Another fatal mistake was that I mainly focused on leveling up my Pikachu, ignoring the rest of my Pokémon. The only time when I changed to my other Pokémon was when Pikachu’s PP for attack moves ran out or when Pikachu was at risk of fainting soon. With an electric type Pokémon as my main, I attempted to take Brock, a Rock-type Pokémon trainer, head on. Needless to say, my first try ended in failure. Electric-type attacks had little effect and normal type attacks were equally not effective. However, I was not deterred in the least. I went back to the grass areas and kept on leveling up Pikachu to a point where even normal attacks could do a significant amount of damage to his Geodudes and Onix. The next time around I used brute force to break through to victory.

Unfortunately, my experience with Brock never really did hit home the mechanics of Pokémon. I never tried to diversify my pool of pokémon, instead preferring to get Pokémon that looked cool or was on the TV show (airing on Kids WB11 at the time). Most of the time when I came across Pokémon that were particularly effective against me (such as ghost Pokémon), I ended up brute forcing the battle.

Ghosts and Frustration – Lavender Town

The situation after Brock was quite fuzzy in my memory. I remember that Misty from Cerulean City was relatively easy to defeat thanks to my Pikachu. Other than that I barely remember the other gym leaders. What I do remember was that Lavender Town was especially spooky. The music that played when in Lavender Town had a creepy tune quite different from the regular Pokémon soundtrack. There were also additional aesthetics that help attribute to the scary atmosphere of the Lavender Town. The initial avatars of the Pokémon were purplish-black ghosts that you just could not run away from consistently. The avatars reminded me of the murders in Detective Conan. Both faceless avatars inflicted grievous injury upon their victims. Worse, both figures appeared to be staring straight into your soul. The Lavender Town experience was further exacerbated by the inability to actually hit the ghosts without the important Silph Scope item and the Ghost’s status effect attacks. Thus, I was continually in situations where I could not attack the random Pokémon I encountered as well as being under attack by annoying status effects.

It did not help that I could not even find the Slith Scope despite looking all over Lavender Town. I spent a massive amount of time running from ghosts and spamming the A button on every single square in Lavender Town, hoping to find the item. I only found the Slith Scope later on in the game after I beat Giovanni, the leader of the Team Rocket (the bad guys). Once I had the Slith Scope, I could reliably fight the Pokémon in Lavender town because they stopped appearing as an anonymous ghost avatar.

The Final Stretch

Past the horror of Lavender Town, the only other major roadblock that I remember was the Victory Road. As a child, I found the pathway through the dungeon extremely confusing. It involved a lot of boulder pushing, button activating, and climbing up and down ladders. You had to climb up floors, then fall down floors in a series of complex positions. I am not sure if I was too young or too stupid to realize how the dungeon was planned out. A lot of the boulders I needed ended up getting stuck in a corner due to my poor planning. I also had to fend off random Pokémon from the environment as well as Pokémon trainers I encountered because I was too stupid to figure out that maybe max repel would have really come in handy. A combination of all these factors made me have to leave Victory Road to run back to the nearest Pokémon center for healing. I had to travel back and forth between the Pokémon center and victory road more than five times. At the end of all of it, I was glad to have another Pokémon Center waiting for me.

Unfortunately, my memory of the elite four battle is also quite hazy. My strongest memory was being completely annoyed by the cheap healing items that they would use when the health points of their Pokémon were in the red. The full restoration of their health points was dangerous for me because quite a few of my attack moves of my strongest Pokémon were low Power Points (PP) moves such as, “hyperbeam.” This meant that the longer a battle dragged out the more limited my attack options became. To further worsen the situation, the low PP moves also often had a high tendency to miss their target. However, after much struggle and retributive item-spamming, I finally managed to defeat Lance’s Dragonite. I remembered shouting with excitement over my first victory over the elite four. I had shouted so loudly that my mother thought I had hurt myself. That event remains permanently ingrained in my head as a great accomplishment against all odds.

Television Unrealities: Disconnect Between the Show and Game

My shortsighted uses of TMs to give my Pokémon cool or high-damage moves stemmed from my childhood naïveity of trying to emulate the TV Pokémon series. Back in the early 2000s, Pokémon was taking the world by a storm. As a child, I watched the Saturday episodes religiously on Kids WB11. My parents did not purchase cable TV (for good reason) so I was limited to common TV channels. That did not make any significant difference to me. For all I knew, Kids WB11 was the best channel on TV with all the interesting shows. Ash and his buddies, Brock and Misty, went on a long backpacking journey to “catch them all.”

The problem was that the show portrayed Pokémon battles as dynamic with opportunities to exploit the environment. However, the in-game mechanics differed in that battles tended to be static and turn-based. Thus, cool tricks such as using the move light screen to protect Pokémon from damage did not really translate over to the game well. Using light screen in-game still resulted in damage when attacked by physical moves. As a young child, I could not comprehend why moves like light screen failed to protect my Pokémon. This confusion further reinforced my misguided belief that non-damaging moves were useless. Thus, I always removed attacks like growl, sand attack, and string shot. My logic was that those moves took up space and should be replaced with moves that actually do damage to the opposing Pokémon. Thus, I usually spammed TMs and HMs on different Pokémon to remove their “useless” moves from them. I always used powerful TMs such as hyperbeam because I was so impressed by their onscreen display. However, these powerful TM moves tended to have quite low PP and as a result often left me struggling in long, extended battles.

I was also ignorant of the basic understanding of the Pokémon stats such as special attack and special defense. The only stats I had a rudimentary understanding of were health points (the bar goes down when you are hurt, and the Pokémon faints when the bar hits zero), attack, and defense. Even my understanding of attack and defense was poor because I was unsure of where they applied. Was defense only for physical attacks? What were classified as physical attacks? Unfortunately, I was never quite curious enough to focus on these mechanics and never thought to research it.

Movie Nerdiness

My love for the Pokémon series extended beyond the weekly episodes with movies. Each movie was usually set up in a manner to advertise their new legendary Pokémon. For example in the first Pokémon movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, the story mostly revolved around the two legendary Pokémon of Mewtwo and Mew. In game, the methods of capturing both of these legendary Pokémon differed. You could find Mewtwo in an elaborate cave, filled to the brim with strong Pokémon, next to Cerulean City. Mew, on the other hand, was found through chance encounters in the wild. Of the two Mewtwo was significantly easier to catch because of his stationary placement. Mew had an annoying habit of running away before you had a chance to lower its health points enough. A similar set up occurred with Johoto region movie: Power of One that features the legendary Pokémon: Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Lugia (The first three Pokémon would later be used for team formations in Pokémon Go). The three legendary birds are included in the movie as being vital to the balance of nature and chaos starts when the balance is broken. Lugia comes to help repair the unbalance. Again with the next Pokémon Movie: Spell of the Unown the story revolves around the legendary Pokémon Entei.

Overview of Pokémon Yellow

Looking back on the game as a whole, the difficulty of Pokémon Yellow was caused mostly by my poor own decisions. I often focused on training Pikachu instead of the rest of my Pokémon. I chose high damage, low accuracy, and low PP attack moves because they looked cooler. I completely disregarded non-damage moves and replaced them using TMs and HMs. I am guilty of completing stacking as many HMs as possible on one Pokémon to save me from the hassle of switching them out. I was stubborn in gyms, routes, and dungeons despite low health, stat effects, and low PP. In short, I was hopelessly naïve when playing Pokémon for the first time. Unfortunately, I did not learn my lesson from the Kanto region and carried over my bad habits into the Hoenn region.

If I had to play Pokémon Yellow all over again today I would do three major changes: (1) I would have a well-balanced roster of Pokémon each with different types of moves. (2) I would have more status attacks such as sand attack or reflect. (3) I would split up the experience to make sure at least 4 of the 6 Pokémon in the party were at the same level. Doing all three of these actions would have mitigated a lot of the challenges I was having with the game.

Three Decades of Gaming

On August 28, 2018April 10, 2020 By evanescentgamingexpIn DiscussionLeave a comment

Welcome to my site detailing my gaming adventures since I was just but a small prepubescent child. My first experience with gaming was on an old Windows 95 computer that was still capable of accepting floppy disks. From then on I had the privilege of playing with a variety of gaming devices from consoles to computers. The gaming industry grew alongside me in adolescence and retains a strong impact on my life experiences.

I started this site as a way of holding onto my memories of gaming. As I grow older, I remember less and less of my past gaming experiences. I also have come to see gaming for what it truly was for me, a huge time waster. I played way too many hours during high school and college that should have been spent studying or learning new skills. I came to this sudden realization towards the end of college where I was struggling with time management. College courses that should not have proven too difficult still left me struggling and the courses that were expected to be difficult were draining the life out of me. To relieve stress I often spent hours gaming when I should have been carefully planning out a study routine. Post-college I found myself struggling to figure what I wanted to accomplish in life. Lo and behold when I went searching on the web for others who struggled through similar situations a lot of the males mentioned gaming being a persistent problem. I concur and agree with this statement.

That is not to say that all of gaming is a waste of time. My cousins and relatives managed to play games occasionally and enjoy life. They are perhaps better role models on how to assimilate gaming in your life without having it become an all-encompassing aspect of your social life. I also would not have met some of my best friends without consoles games. However, it is better to take everything in moderation and I am troubled by what I am witnessing today. Gaming continues to an ever growing industry that competes for the attention of today’s youth along with YouTube videos and Facebook. While the success of such a fledgling industry warms my heart (better to rub it in on adults who said that you cannot make money gaming), it also makes me worried that there are thousands of young men that increasingly devoting their lives to gaming without developing social and professional skills to support themselves.

But who am I to criticize? I still love gaming and find myself occasionally falling back into a gaming marathon. Each time different games keep coming back to make the gaming experience more interesting and fun. Like a siren song that mesmerizes passing sailors, new games and old games, with their new visuals and updates, attract me constantly. Also the huge variety of games makes it so that you’ll never get bored entirely of gaming. The thrill of building an empire in turn based games scratches my world domination itch. The fast nature of first person shooters gets my heart pumping like crazy. Real time strategy gives you satisfaction of battling with wits and economics. Story based visual novels tug at your heart strings and mind. There is just too many different types of games to appeal too many different types of people to ever really get tired of gaming.

However that discussion is for another time. This website is mainly to scratch my historian itch towards recording all past events. I might even refer back to it decades later as a primary or secondary source.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Website Layout

I have broken down my experiences in two different ways. On the blog page, I will go into detail about the specific games that I played and the various quirks that I loved and hated about each game. On the upper navigation bar, I have made a page for each type of gaming device I own or used to own. The gaming devices are split into four categories: Personal Computer (PC), Console gaming, Handheld console, and Mobile. The computer tab will be the most robust of the categories due to my change from console peasant to PC master race over the recent decade.

Tom's Gaming Adventures

Author: evanescentgamingexp