Belated Shameless Gaming Month 2012 Final Roundup

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So, shameless gaming month for 2012 has well and truly gone. The question for me, though, is how did I go in the end?

Overall I think I did well, and certainly a lot better than last year! I managed to complete Explodemon, platinum/100% Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, finished Phantasy Star 2 on the Sega Ages 2500 release in Easy mode and had a crack at finishing Monster World 4 on the PS3. I ended up getting a quarter of the way through the latter before the end of the month, so unfortunately I didn’t manage to finish everything in July, but I did 100% Monster World 4 by the end of the first week in August, so I think that’s pretty good by my standards 🙂

Not sure what I’ll be working on next year, but I found this was a great excuse to funnel my time into some gaming and get me back into the groove of making time to play games, rather than just write about them 🙂

Shameless Gaming Month, July 2012 – update

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In an amazing turn of events, I finished off Explodemon this week as part of Shameless Gaming Month 😀

While the last boss was cheap and mean, it was a delightful end to an otherwise excellent retro-inspired platformer. The razor-sharp 1080p goodness, unbelievable chiptune-inspired soundtrack and variety of homages to Capcom, Konami and Treasure platformers (as well as a bit of Yoshi’s Island in there too!) made it worth the collective headbutt on the final encounter.

I’ve talked about the game previously, but dug up a couple of interesting bits on the game others might find interesting – there’s an amazing blow-by-blow account of the game’s development at one bit beyond, and an excellent interview and review at PlayStationLifeStyle.net. Oh, and there’s also the official website too.

Shamless Gaming Month, July 2012

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Well, Kotaku have started it again, so let’s play Shameless Gaming Month for July 2012. Last year I put in a wussy effort by finishing Wonder Boy in Monster World on the Mega Drive, so for this year I’m going to try to be a bit more ambitious.

How ambitious? This ambitious:

  • Finally finish (the amazing) Explodemon on the PS3,
  • In honour of last year’s entry, finish the recently released Monster World IV on PS3 (and as an aside, expect a review for the Sega Vintage Collection releases soon)
  • Finally get all the trophies on the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (aka Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for those in the US), and
  • Play through Phantasy Star 2 in Easy Mode on the Sega Ages Phantasy Star Collection on the PS2.

🙂

Admittedly I put the last point on the to-do list back in February, and I’m not sure if I’ll have the stamina to trophy my way through the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection given how terrible the emulation is, especially compared to M2’s recent (and benchmark-setting) efforts for the Sega Vintage Collection releases.

And as an aside, apologies for the brief hiatus of the blog – June was absolutely mad between commitments at work and home, but things have started settling down again, which is nice 🙂

There should be more love for Explodemon out there

I haven’t checked if the internet is a buzz since Explodemon came out, but Curve Studio’s brilliant little platformer deserves accolades and then some.

The game borrows inspiration from Megaman X as its primary influence, but you can see all sorts of tips of the hat to other Japanese platformers (including the hilarious Engrish dialogue from Explodemon), and is imbued with the kind of creative feeling we got from EU devs on the Amiga and Atari ST during the 80s and 90s. This makes perfect sense of course given Curve are based in the UK, and that passion from an era past is omnipresent throughout the production. The visuals look amazing running in 1080p, the soundtrack shines with its chip-tune inspired synth and it controls super-tight, which is essential for a platformer running on a 3D engine, even though it’s only operating on a 2D plane.

If you haven’t given Exlodemon a whirl, go for it – there’s a demo up on PSN and the price for the full version is very reasonable. It’s a great, original title with plenty of charm worthy of your time and moolah.