Mortal Kombat Special Forces

Mortal Kombat Special Forces released after Mythologies and some how turned out worse. The “story” saw Jax trying to stop Kano and his gang from obtaining an artifact. Yes, that’s really it. Combined with awful action, no real gore and pathetic design, Mortal Kombat Special Forces could only be possible if many members of the development team, including co-creator John Tobias, just up and left. Which is exactly what happened. Co-creator Ed Boon would further confirm the various problems plaguing development, even though he didn’t work on it either.

Namco is one of the most important video game companies there is- it was responsible for the rise of video gaming in arcades, via its Pac-Man and Galaga cabinets, it was a frontrunner in NES development, it is credited with the rise of Sega with the Genesis, and it single handedly blazed the trail for PlayStation’s success, thanks to early games such as Tekken and Ridge Racer. Namco is a pioneer of genres such as 3D fighters and racing games, and even today, remains one of the largest publishers in the world, and one of the few Japanese companies to have escaped the decline of the Japanese market without being affected at all.

A large part of all of Namco’s accomplishments can be credit to founder Masaya Nakamura (who even named the company after himself- Nakamura Amusement Machine Company). Nakamura-sama truly stands as one of the pioneers of the video game medium, and one of the fathers of the medium as we know it today. So it’s with a heavy heart that we have to report today that he has passed away at the age of 91. Bandai Namco confirmed his passing in a statement, where they also noted that out of respect for his family’s wishes and privacy, they would not be disclosing the exact cause of his death.

Nakamura-sama is one of the fathers of video games, and one of the reasons that all of us are playing games today. On his passing, let us all of us unite as fans of the medium to pay respects to his memories. May he rest in peace.

The PlayStation 4 continues to pass records and milestones- here’s another one that most probably didn’t give much thought. Sony’s fourth flagship home console passed Nintendo’s legendary third one to become the thirteenth highest selling console of all time. That’s right, the PlayStation4 has now officially sold more than the Nintendo 64, worldwide. The PS4’s worldwide sales are now at just under 36 million units worldwide- the Nintendo 64 ended its worldwide run at just about 33 million.

It’s a bittersweet moment- no doubt Sony have earned every last one of those sales, I don’t begrudge them those, but the Nintendo 64 was a special console, the usher of the modern era of gaming, and one with so many titles that shifted the paradigm. The Nintendo 64 was one of the first 3D consoles ever made- among other things, it introduced the world to analog sticks, controller vibration, four player multiplayer, first person shooters done properly on consoles, and 3D games done properly, with something as simple as camera control or movement and exploration in a 3D world being nailed down and demonstrated properly by N64 titles like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Of course, it’s also a very old machine, and not quite a successful one at that (the original PlayStation kicked its ass on the market), so unless the PS4 had turned out to be less than even a middling success, this was going to happen.

The next milestones for the PS4 to pass are the Genesis at around 40 million, and the SNES at around 50 million- 16 bit console warriors, prepare yourselves. The PS4 is coming for your memories.

In the very first console war, back when Sega’s Genesis and Nintendo’s SNES were duking it out, Sega tried to prop up the technical specs of their console by coining all sorts of gimmicky terms- things such as blast priocessing, which became common parlance and inform the vocabulary of gaming enthusiasts even today. All of this was done to mask the extremely obvious fact that, yes, the Genesis was technically inferior to Nintendo’s SNES, which, launching two years later, was a far better console.

Scott Bayless, who served as a Senior Producer at Sega of America between 1990 and 1994, was one of the men who coined the phrase- and man, is he not happy about it. Speaking to Nintendo Life, he mostly appears to not quite like the term at all.

“Sadly I have to take responsibility for that ghastly phrase,” he said. “Marty Franz [Sega technical director] discovered that you could do this nifty trick with the display system by hooking the scan line interrupt and firing off a DMA at just the right time. The result was that you could effectively jam data onto the graphics chip while the scan line was being drawn – which meant you could drive the DAC’s with 8 bits per pixel. Assuming you could get the timing just right you could draw 256 color static images. There were all kinds of subtleties to the timing and the trick didn’t work reliably on all iterations of the hardware but you could do it and it was cool as heck.

“So during the runup to the western launch of Sega-CD the PR guys interviewed me about what made the platform interesting from a technical standpoint and somewhere in there I mentioned the fact that you could just “blast data into the DAC’s” Well they loved the word ‘blast’ and the next thing I knew Blast Processing was born. Oy.”

Oy, indeed. But hey, it managed to sell systems, and it pushed Nintendo into working harder with their console. Meanwhile, it pushed Sega into living up to the image that they had created with their own marketing. The result was that we got not just one, but two excellent consoles, both of which just begged to be owned.

If ‘blast processing’ is the price to pay for that, well then, so be it.

The upcoming re-imagining of the Genesis classic Mickey Mouse adventure seems to have a fair few older gamers nostalgic for the simpler times of 16 bit gaming excited. Now, those of you who are looking forward to the game will be pleased with the all new twelve minutes’ worth of gameplay footage, courtesy of a playthrough by our friends over at Game Informer.

Check it out for yourself and tell us what you think. Are you excited? Do you think it’s a faithful re-imagining of the game you remember?

The upcoming HD remake of will be published by Sega and it will be made available digitally on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC sometime in the coming months. Sorry Wii U owners. In what appears to be an increasingly common state of events, it looks like you’re out of luck for now.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for further coverage of the title.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/new-gameplay-footage-for-castle-of-illusion/feed 0 167150 https://gamingbolt.com/this-is-howhat-genesis-games-running-the-vita-look-like https://gamingbolt.com/this-is-howhat-genesis-games-running-the-vita-look-like#respond Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:46:39 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/?p=60136

No, no, no it did not get hacked, the Vita I mean. It’s just that the PSP emulator has been exploited to run Genesis games. Yes Emulator inside an emulator.

Sony will fix this according to the hacker, so watch while it lasts.

“Sony put into place some security that will basically make this exploit moot as soon as it is made available”, making clips like this “just useful for research right now”.

It’s pretty cool on the amazing OLED screen, though, but it would be nice if the Vita doesn’t get hacked, as I’m actually interested to play the latest third-party games on it.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Video games are forever the scapegoats of the media industry. Apparently, video games are all powerful contriving machinations that can be single handedly held responsible for all that is wrong with society today. So, did your kid just blow off the head of his school friend with an assault rifle today? It’s totally ’cause he was playing Grand Theft Auto this weekend. Did North Korea just declare a nuclear war on the rest of the world? Totally ’cause Kim Jong-Il was playing GTA last weekend. Did that nice little kitten just die because some dude ran it over with his car? Yup, you guessed it. Grand Theft Auto. Do you find yourself unable to pee? Dude, that is so totally because of video games.  Actually, this one may just be because you’re lazy, but you can still blame it on Grand Theft Auto.

Clearly, video games are capable of single handedly ruining all that we hold dear, and of bringing society to its knees, while all the video games and consoles of the world fuse together to form Skynet and enslave us in an artificial simulation. Recognizing the need to protect mankind from the horror of such a future, organizations around the world- including governments, private censorship bodies, and video game developers and publishers themselves- have taken it upon themselves to save humanity from impending doom by using the deadliest weapon at their arsenal- censorship. And since a violent video game is the one that is most likely to impale us with a spiked pole (is it wrong that I find the idea of dying that way attractive?), it is violent video games that take the heat most often.

We at GamingBolt recognize that the labors of those noble men who strive to shield us from video game violence must not go unsung. And thus, we have compiled here a list of six of the most evil, most dastardly, most violent video games that we were all saved from. Enjoy.

6. GRAND THEFT AUTO SERIES (PC, PS, GBC, PS2, XBOX, GBA, XBOX 360, PS3, DS, PSP, IPHONE)

You totally weren’t expecting this one, were you? Me neither.

Astonishingly enough, it appears a lot of people worldwide have taken objection to the Grand Theft Auto series’ extreme focus on violence. Apparently, people don’t like the idea of being able to steal cars and mow down rows and rows of pedestrians, of getting into a tank and declaring war on a city, of equipping yourself with a bazooka and engaging in random acts of terrorism, of going on violent rampages and killing in everyone in sight… I can’t for the life of me fathom why anyone would find that offensive in the slightest, now, do you?

But people do, for some unfathomable reason. So, we have Grand Theft Auto games banned in Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. Eh, whatever.

5. NO MORE HEROES (WII)

Ah, don’t you just love Nintendo? The warm, fuzzy, family loving company that understands the influence video games can exercise over impressionable minds, and refrains from including any kind of violence in its video games. There is no way they’d let any violent video game on their system, right? RIGHT?

Well, apparently, they just grew a pair of balls.

The kid friendly Nintendo Wii played host to Suda51’s No More Heroes, a game that is about an assassin who wields light sabers, engages in over the top duels, is full to the brim with toilet humor.

Also, dismembered limbs and splattering blood.

That last apparently causes the game to cross some kind of line, because we find that No More Heroes was censored in all territories but the USA so that it would have no blood, no dismembered limbs, no gore, and no violence of any kind, save that which is implied. Just have a look at that video above.

Well, what can we say? Apparently, seeing blood being red causes people to reach for their nearest katana beams and behead the first person they see.

4. POSTAL 2 (PC)

I’m assuming you guys know about this one by now- after all, this game takes center stage in the anti video games argument in California’s justification to outlaw the sales of excessively violent games to minors. However, just in case you’re some guy who lives in his parents’ basement, playing World of Warcraft all day long, never going out on social outings, never having talked to a girl, never following the news, you should know Postal 2 is an extremely violent game that allows you to be a dick and throw scissors at children to hurt them, while you laugh hysterically in the real world, you sick, twisted bastard.

Obviously, this is totally the video game that will bring about the nuclear fallout. Ban it, ban it now. Do it now, assholes.

Yeah, so Postal 2 finds itself banned in a grand total of three countries in the world, which include Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. That is, approximately 0.5% of the gaming world. Ah, well.

The next group of titles being made available for download include favorites such as Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Dr Robotnick’s Mean Bean Machine, Eternal Champions and many more. These popular SEGA titles will be available via digital partners with pricing from $2.99.

“This is another stunning selection of Genesis classics – we’re happy to be bringing back more of these great memories our fans are asking for,” said Haruki Satomi, Vice President Digital Business at SEGA of America. “By bringing these 16-bit titles back for the first time to PC as downloads, SEGA once again shows how to make timeless masterpieces accessible to anyone at anytime”