Lord of the Rings (Super NES, 1994)

Originally Posted: This time in 2010, and very incomplete. Now with the rest of the game added

Back in 1995, I played an SNES game called Lord of the Rings Vol 1. This is hands-down one of the worst RPGs on the system. Still, I played the hell out of this via a rental or two. I never finished it. I reached the final dungeon and quit because it's a complete maze and made no sense.

...wait a minute. "First Action Adventure RPG with real-time combat"? Ever heard of Secret of Mana, jerks?

Regardless, I hit this game up just to finish what I started long ago, and I got some screenshots in the process. The game uses a password system, so eventually I found a password to skip to the final dungeon - albeit with underpowered characters - and went for it. This game may be awful overall, but the final dungeon is quite respectable. It's like the developers put all their energy into the Mines of Moria.

Highlander 4x20 - Till Death

 

This episode contains the stunning and beautiful Angelina de Valicourt, seen here in the worst possible picture anyone could take of her for the episode thumbnail. Come on, guys. Anyway, she's smart and sexy and rambunctious and... Dammit, I told myself I wouldn't make this weird. She's just gorgeous, and also immortal, that's important. Yep, she's immortal and gorgeous. I don't have a crush, YOU have a crush. Dammit, I'm being weird again. I'll just start this.

Highlander 4x19 - Double Jeopardy

 

The cover image for this episode is a random cop lady... when the episode itself is a rare and coveted Xavier St. Cloud episode. That's right, he returns! Can't believe they didn't have him as the cover image. It's just as well though, because this is also unfortunately the return of Cop Show Highlander. For one night only! You know the creators of the show were chomping at the bit to bring back the Cop Show format, only to be held at bay by David Abramowitz like Gandalf holding off the Balrog.

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures - Part 2 (Temple of Doom + Last Crusade)

 

The second half of this great game. We start with my least-favorite of the first three movies (it's still good though). I hope this game doesn't contain that insufferable, screeching blonde. It's bad enough to lose Marion, but losing her and getting a shrill harpy is a true step down. At least the movie also has Shorty, the most likeable character in the trilogy. The game does not contain Playable Shorty, unfortunately.

Temple of Doom might have also inspired every "mine cart level" in every video game. I like mine cart levels, so that's cool by me. ...will THIS game have a mine cart level, though?

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures (Super NES, 1994)

 

Truly legendary game here that I've wanted to play since 1994. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best movies of all time and probably in any legitimate top ten for action/adventure movies. And good news: This game has all three movies from the original trilogy represented. LucasArts didn't decide to have it span three games like the Star Wars SNES trilogy, which is both good and bad. Good because you're getting a lot of value / series coverage out of this one game. Bad because it can't go into the kind of detail for each one that individual games would have had.

Regardless, this game came out right around the same time as Super Return of the Jedi and has a ton in common with that trilogy. It should, same developers. I'm pretty stoked for this, so stoked that I've gotten out my old Nintendo Power for this game and loaded up the movies to watch this week. The first three.

Note: While the timing is intentional given that Indiana Jones is back, posting this isn't an endorsement of this week's movie. Which is apparently doing even worse than The Flash. One of these days these studios might learn that their target audience doesn't feel like watching their beloved legacy characters get "deconstructed" as alcoholic old fools who ruined their lives and no longer have any redeeming qualities.

Anyway,  love Raiders of the Lost Ark! Let's go!

Freedom Finger (Playstation 4 and Switch, 2020)

 

This is the single craziest space-shooter I've ever seen. It's a parody of American foreign policy and a bit of an indictment of the Establishment with its many victims. It's also completely nutso. I had no idea what I was getting into until I played this with a friend over one afternoon. We expected a pretty basic space shooter and what we got was something else entirely.

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare: F*** it let's just do it.

Kirby: Mass Attack (Nintendo DS, 2011)

 

This is the only main series Kirby game that I've never played. So I made it a bit of a personal mission to knock it off and "complete the series", which led to me noticing that we were on the 30th anniversary of me getting Kirby's Dream Land, and deciding to do a post about that, and then deciding to do more posts of some spinoffs, and why not this one too while I'm at it? DS games get very little time on here. Never played this before, don't know what to expect*, and I'm going to beat the game either way. Screenshots are gonna be in all kinds of weird proportions while I figure out what works best.

* - All I know is that it has stylus controls. Which is probably why I skipped it back in the day. DS games can't help themselves with stylus controls. Or as I call them, "Waggle Motion: The Wave of Tomorrow"

...I'm starting to doubt my commitment to Waggle Motion.