You Don't Know Jack: Movies (PC)

Developer:

Berkeley & Jellyfish

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Release Date:

1996

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Systems:

Windows and Mac

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm going to find out what you get when an award-winning children's multimedia edutainment developer teams up with the people who brought the world the 'flying toasters' screensaver, as I take a look at You Don't Know Jack: Movies.

I've actually played a few of the You Don't Know Jack games before (I can't remember which, there's a million of the things), but I'm certain I've never seen this one before, and all the questions will be entirely new to me. The game itself is pretty old though, one of the oldest in the series in fact, released just two years after the original. Unfortunately it wasn't really designed for newfangled resolutions like '1920x1080' or '800x600', so if you're reading this on a computer then you're likely seeing it the exact same way I am: as a tiny box in the middle of the screen. To be honest I'm just glad (and a little surprised) that it's running at all in Windows 8.

The thing about the You Don't Know Jack games though is they don't have any computer opponents, and there's no online play in this one, so to get a proper game out of this I had to bring a volunteer in to man the player 2 buzzer...

Star Wars: Yoda Stories (PC)

Developer:

LucasArts

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Release Date:

1997

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Systems:

Windows, GBC

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1997 was a pretty big year for Star Wars, perhaps the biggest since Return of the Jedi hit cinemas 14 years earlier. The original trilogy of films were remastered and rereleased on cinema screens with Greedo now officially shooting first, the mighty engines of Lucasfilm had geared up to produce a new movie with two more promised to follow, Timothy Zahn released another Thrawn novel, Dark Forces got a sequel with lightsabers, TIE Fighter got a sequel with multiplayer… and then there was the other game.

But Masters of Teräs Käsi is going to have to wait, because today on Super Adventures I’m taking a quick look at a ‘desktop toy’ called Star Wars: Yoda Stories. It’s basically meant to sit alongside games like Minesweeper and FreeCell and give you something to do for half an hour while you’re taking a break from work. There is one subtle difference between Yoda Stories and the games bundled with Windows though: this retailed for £20 in Britain back in the day. That was enough to buy you a third of a Donkey Kong Country game!

Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)

Developer:

Konami

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Release Date:

1985

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Systems:

It's all over the place

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Today's 'Y' game on Super Adventures is arcade classic Yie Ar KUNG-FU!

In Chinese the title means 'One Two Kung-Fu'... or perhaps '12 Kung-Fu' I suppose. I wouldn't really know, as my understanding of Chinese is even worse than my knowledge of Japanese. Though one thing I do know is that this is likely one of the most influential games ever made, as it basically kicked off the 1 vs. 1 fighting game genre when it hit arcades way back in 1985. That's two years before Street Fighter 1!

Okay there were a quite a few other games that introduced important elements of the genre, like Sega's 1976 version of Heavyweight Champ, Data East's Karate Champ and Nintendo's Urban Champion, but Yie Ar Kung-Fu has the proper health bars, the varied cast, the freedom of movement, the punch and kick buttons... nearly all of the basics in one place. I suppose its greatest gift to the fighting game genre though, was to prove that you don't have to have 'Champ' in the title to be successful, because otherwise today we'd be talking about games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Champcom 3, Champgirls, Guilty Champ Xrd, Melty Champ: Champtress Again Current Champ, and Street Fighter II' Champion Edition.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu came out for a million different systems, but I'd hit my arbitrary word count limit just listing them all so I'll be sticking exclusively to the arcade version this time around. My plan is to give it an hour or so, fail a few (dozen) times, then finish off by blaming the game for all my mistakes.

Deus Ex: The Fall (PC)

Developer:

Eidos Montréal & N-Fusion

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Release Date:

2013 (iOS)

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Systems:

iOS, Android, Windows

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The final ‘X’ game on Super Adventures for now is… unwanted iPhone prequel Deus Ex: The Fall! It doesn't technically start with an 'X', but I had to find a way to fit all of the Deus Ex games in before my alphabetical order gimmick was over somehow.

By the way, when I said "unwanted", I didn't mean that I don’t appreciate it getting a PC port; it’s always good news to me when a game gets less exclusive, whether it’s originally from the iPhone, the Vita, the 3DS… the Dreamcast, whatever! I won't be able to tell if Deus Ex: The Fall has gotten a graphical overhaul in the process though, because I've never seen it running on iOS. In fact I was trying to ignore the fact that it existed at all, because no one ever asked for a cut down, simplified Deus Ex game with touch screen controls and microtransactions

But it found its way into my Steam library at some point thanks to the sinister machinations of the Humble Bundle, and I’ve been assured that the microtransactions have been stripped out, so I’m going to sit here for an hour or so and give the game a fair chance to win me over. I might accidentally call it Deus Ex: The Line a few times though, because my brain has got into the habit of doing that and it's kind of annoying.

(Click the screenshots to expand them to 1280x720.)

Boiling Point: Road to Hell (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Hello I'm mecha-neko and I'm playing first-person open-world epic Boiling Point (aka. Xenus)!
Click here to go back to part one.

Boiling Point: Road to Hell (PC) - Part 1 - Guest Post

Back by popular demand, guest poster mecha-neko has returned one more time to write up his thoughts on the first few hours of obscure Ukrainian open world FPS Xenus, better known as Boiling Point.

To hell with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Get out of here, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Begone, Far Cry 4. The future is here. This is the ultimate game.

This is Boiling Point: Road to Hell.

STEP INTO REALITY
Your presence here affects everything. Each step you take is crucial. Every game is different. Forget linear games with levels and loading times. This is real life. Your enemies take things personally and they never forget. Every action you make will come back to haunt you. And with the army, Guerrillas, and Mafia on to you, you'd better watch your back. Help them out, or blast your way through. Either way, the heat is up and you'll be pushed to Boiling Point.

Let me tell you all about my holiday in Realia!
You can click on my holiday snaps to view them in full resolution.

Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends - Complete Edition (PC)

Today for Super Adventures I’m spending an hour or two learning about Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends – Complete Edition! You can’t even claim I cheated to put this as one of my ‘X’ games this time because just look at the logo! This is Xiest X game since… did Vin Diesel's xXx ever get a game tie-in? No? Okay then, this is the Xiest X game since BMX XXX.

It’s called the 'Complete Edition' because it combines the base Dynasty Warriors 8 game with the Xtreme Legends expansion, which is as complete as the game gets in the West until the Empires expansion makes an appearance later this year. You know, I've always assumed that the Dynasty Warriors series was firmly console only, but apparently they’ve been getting PC ports since the fourth game back in 2003. This definitely the first and only one I’ve ever seen on Steam though, along with its 7,000 pieces of DLC. So many irritatingly tempting costume packs... thankfully priced way above my impulse buy limit. I’ve never wanted to play dress-up with my video game characters so badly though.

Oh I should mention that this was a surprise gift from a friend who reads the site, so I can’t actually say anything bad about the game. Sorry about that. I’ve been a big fan of the series since the PlayStation 2 games though so I’m way past the point of unbiased criticism anyway.

(Click the images to view them at around... 1280x720 resolution.)