When I rained hot death upon my enemies. When, even when my tank was turned into a nuclear crematorium, I could get out a smart-ass one-liner. When unchecked nuclear proliferation was a .cfg file edit away. When the world's end was heralded in bright CGA rainbows.

These days are here again. FUCKING SCORCHED EARTH IS BACK.

There's a good reddit thread about some stellar ROM hacks, making totally new versions of Super Mario World, Super Metroid, aLttP, and others that I offer for your perusal. If you think any of these deserve to be spotlighted, then speak up!

Animaniacs GENESIS ROM (671.9 KB)

...and I/just realized/I'm singing the wrong Goddamn song! Oh well, you all know the drill anyway. Warners. Crazy. Tower. Escaping. Jokes you won't get for another 6-10 years. I had to decide between this and the very different SNES one (both made by Konami). I chose this because the SNES one is FUCKING HARD. In that game, you roll as the Warner Bros. (and Warner sister, Dot), who all have the same powers. The other sibs basically act like lives - if you get caught by Ralph the security guard, he takes you back to the water tower and you have to go get them (think the NES TMNT), which involves platforms, buzzards and MORE GODDAMN RALPH. I hate that guy. But the plots for both games are basically the same. Pinky & the Brain have a plan and it involves the WB studio lot. You run around and try to stop them. In the Genesis game, you can switch out your Warners, each of which has a different ability. Yakko is strong enough to push boulders and has a deadly paddle-ball. Wakko has a mallet, for flipping switches, etc. And Dot is cuuuuuute, which moves people out of your way. Also, she's immune to Hello Nurse, who stuns the other 2. At the end of a stage, you fight a boss, and move on. It's a pretty solid platformer. It's totally a Genesis game, so expect to see a lot of brown and green, and the music ... actually, it's atypically not-annoying.

Ahh, what the hell. Here's the SNES one too, just for comparison.

It's been a bit since I added a new game. I'm just trying to decide between the SNES or Genesis versions of Animaniacs. And between moving, working, and watching Death Note (which is awesome, BTW). I'll sit down and play enough of them to make a decision this weekend. I'm kinda leaning Genesis, though, because the play mechanic just seems more interesting. I did totally blow through Super Mario World. 96-star in one go, baby. Had to ask Wombat for one thing, but then it was just like I remember. It seems a lot easier, and the levels usually much shorter than I remember. I do also remember when I was a kid that I'd always try to go for the Yoshi coins, random coins, and various power-ups/bonus pipes, but this time I just couldn't care. Also, I'm way better at flying than I was, and there's something weirdly satisfying about just straight skipping a level via cape.

I usually write the post at work and then come home to upload the ROM, but if I had this watch, I could keep ROMs on me and upload from work.

What? I have 4 posts. That's enough to start begging for free shit, right? I'm still learning this blogging thing.

Also, apropos of nothing, but Andrew Sullivan finally got something right!

I will get to Mega Man games eventually. But just to get everyone in the mood, I need you to crack open a bottle of wine, recline comfortably, and get ready to have your day made. The Mega Man 9 promo art from Capcom:

Oh yes. Look how sweet it is. It's quite the shame that it's not actually going to have a box. Maybe special download card packages?

There's also an amazing interview with Mega Man 9's producer, Hironobu Takeshita on Gamasutra. He talks about how the designers had to forget all the fancy alpha-blended, triliner interpolygon tracing they've been using and work exactly within the original NES specs. To that end, allowing flicker and slowdown will be an option in the game. This needs to be ported to the DS, so that they can add the "blow to make the game work" mechanic as well. I sometimes play games I played back then and wondered how I could drop so many hours on what was essentially pixelated crap. I now know to blame oxygen deprivation.

For more retro goodness, some classic Mega Man boxart. Suitable for framing, or transition to black velvet.

E.V.O. - the Search for Eden SNES ROM (1.15MB)

This week's game is EVO - the Search for Eden. It's an action RPG for the SNES by Enix. You start out as a fish that dreams of becoming a man. Or Flying Tooth Machine. You eat things, they drop meat, you get Evo points to evolve a part of your body (body, teeth, flippers, etc), which gives you more HP, attack power, or defense. The plot hangs on the goddess Gaia, and collecting these weird crystals that the other animals don't really trust for some reason. Occasionally you hear weird, official voices discussing the progress of some plan. Or the seaweed will tell you what's going on.
The evolution mechanic is a neat idea, even if some of the upgrades are nebulously useful. Yes, that row of spikes down your back looks awesome, but does diddly squat against things jumping on you. Also, while there are some trade-offs for play style (do you like being nimble, or a tank? How important is jumping to you?), your upgrades are pretty linear. As straight as this plays the idea of evolution (the stages are various million-year eras, which you get time-transported between), there are some interesting diversions. You can only control minor upgrades, while drastic changes in form (from fish to amphibian to reptile) are automatic, as predicted by Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium. The vast majority of your "evolution" really seems more like Intelligent Design, with the player as the Creator. You make upgrades and then adjust your animal's actions accordingly: you can't get better jaws yet? Then you have to make do with jumping on things. A truer evolution-based system would work in reverse: if you spend too much time jumping, then your jaws would atrophy, or vice versa.
This is overall a pretty fun game, even if sometimes it's a grind (stomp dragonfly, eat, repeat x 50, evolve). It also sets the stage for future evolution/eat-or-be-eaten games, like Cubivore, Viva Pinata, Evolva, and Spore.