VideoGame_Discussion

We found our flock of fighters and FPSs, so let's all F ourselves for F February and get our votes in.

Fighter Nominees The Rumble Fish 2 Mortal Kombat (2011) Primal Rage Super Smash Bros. SoulCalibur II Shaq Fu Power Stone

FPS Nominees Alien vs. Predator Quake Doom Hexen Star Wars: Dark Forces The Catacomb series

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The highest-scoring fighting game and highest-scoring FPS will each be a February Game of the Month.

Here are my votes:

The Rumble Fish 2 - 4 Mortal Kombat (2011) - 3 Primal Rage - 4 Super Smash Bros. - 5 SoulCalibur II - 5 Shaq Fu - 3 Power Stone - 5 Alien vs. Predator - 3 Quake - 5 Doom - 5 Hexen - 4 Star Wars: Dark Forces - 4 The Catacomb series - 3

fVote!

Shaq Fu - 5
Super Smash Bros. - 2
SoulCalibur II - 2
Star Wars: Dark Forces - 4
Quake - 2

We're gotta stop Sett Ra and get back to that charity basketball game, yo.

Alien vs. Predator - 4
Quake - 5
Doom - 4
Hexen - 3
Star Wars: Dark Forces - 5

Rumble Fish 2 5
Quake 5

So many choices...

Fighter Nominees 0 - The Rumble Fish 2 3 - Mortal Kombat (2011) 2 - Primal Rage 0 - Super Smash Bros. 3 - SoulCalibur II 2 - Shaq Fu 3 - Power Stone

FPS Nominees 1 - Alien vs. Predator 0 - Quake 0 - Doom 2 - Hexen 0 - Star Wars: Dark Forces 0 - The Catacomb series

Pretty low scores here, but I either don't have access to most of the FPS titles or beat them recently (Doom, Quake). The fighters is more of a mixed bag.

Slickriven wrote:

Yeah, there are a lot this month. Hopefully, everyone was okay with having a lot of options.

One more day of votes! Anybody else want to chime in?

Quake - 5
Doom - 5
Hexen - 5
AVP - 5

Mortal Kombat 9 - 5
Primal Rage - 5
Powerstone - 3

Sonic Adventure is gonna play with us some other time. Here are the results from this month:

image Renaissance2K image image

image

Jokes aside, thanks to everyone that revisited this Dreamcast classic this month. It hasn't aged as elegantly as some other timeless platformers, but it's an important piece of Sega history nonetheless. If you complete the game with any of its six characters in the future, feel free to share your progress in the thread for your badge.

I'm not sure if double the votes meant double the fun, but here are the final tallies for February's bi-genre Game of the Month:

F is for Fighting Games

1. Shaq Fu - 15 points
2. The Rumble Fish 2 - 14 points
3. SoulCalibur II - 13 points
4. Power Stone - 11 points
5. Mortal Kombat (2011) - 11 points
5. Primal Rage - 11 points
7. Super Smash Bros. - 7 points

My God... what have we done?

At the peak of his presence in the zeitgeist, Shaquille O'Neal could do no wrong. Except free throws. And acting. It was only a matter of time before he would appear in a video game. Shaq Fu is the result of that odyssey, a 2D fighting game released for the Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Amiga - as well as some portables - that pits Shaq Daddy against a bunch of interdimensional weirdos to save a young boy. The game received a middling reception at launch, a sentiment that comically seems to have deteriorated over time. Today, the game is - some would argue, unfairly - remembered as one of the worst games of all time, not because of its objective gameplay quality but because of its blatant absurdity as a cash-in.

Play Shaq Fu on
Sega Genesis
Super Nintendo
Game Boy
Game Gear
Amiga

Complete Story Mode or Duel Mode in any version Shaq Fu to earn the a badge for the character you used: Badges coming soon

And on a completely different end of the gaming spectrum...

F is for First-Person Shooters

1. Quake - 22 points
2. Star Wars: Dark Forces - 16 points
3. Doom - 14 points
3. Hexen - 14 points
5. Alien vs. Predator - 13 points
5. The Catacomb series - 8 points

Quake's impact on its genre is arguably matched only by its older cousin Doom. While not the first fully-3D first-person shooter, its revolutionary engine set the new standard for competing games moving forward. Quake was one of the first killer apps for the PC's nascent 3D accelerator market, came with its own robust scripting language, and launched a multiplayer community and culture that still exists today. While not as omni-ported as Doom, it was later officially ported to the Saturn and Nintendo 64, unofficially ported to numerous other platforms by the homebrew community, and recently remastered by Bethesda for modern platforms.

Play Quake on
DOS & Windows
MacOS
Amiga
Saturn
Nintendo 64
Xbox One
PlayStation 4
Switch

Complete any port or version of Quake to earn the Quad Damage badge: image

Whether it's the boom from a shaka-laka or a rocket launcher, don't be shy about sharing any #BeatIt screenshots.

I have been wanting to play Quake on DC for a LONG time,
Will I play the fighting game …… I do not know.
I may even have a copy but if not then no worries.
At least we have Quake 😃

This month will be fun 😃

I've nominated Shaq Fu multiple times. And now it wins.

Fanatical has Quake in a bundle:

https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-yo...

I'd also recommend getting Dusk, it's a modern style Quake/Doom.

And

Amid Evil. It's like a mix of Doom/Quake with being level based but uses weapons like Heretic/Hexen.

Now I need to buy a shaq fu.

Kommie wrote:

Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/175294645...

I tried this on everything but the Amiga last night but finished it on the Super Nintendo. It's as bad as, say, the original Street Fighter game, but it doesn't appear to be blatantly broken or buggy like a lot of other games more deserving of the "worst game ever" moniker. The Shaq integration is eye-rollingly bad. His special moves are Shaq puns, his sprite doesn't look like he does, and the story is exactly what you'd expect. But it's short. And other than the fact that the special moves are nearly impossible to pull off, it's not painfully difficult.

Genesis has more characters (which I'm actually considering a minus, because it makes the Story and Duel modes twice as long), appears to be more difficult, and has that horrible mechanic where you press Start to switch between punch and kick attacks because of the lack of buttons. The AI also seems to be a bit less forgiving in that one. Game Gear is about the same with worse controls.

Game Boy, oddly enough, plays surprisingly well, and it's the only platform on which I could do special moves consistently.

benstylus wrote:

You’d better get one before the Shaq-Fu Liberation Front destroys every copy. https://shaqfu.com/ourmission

I'm tempted to look for the game gear version but I think SNES will probably be easiest to find.

Not sure when I am going to Owensboro next, so I went ahead and bought a copy or two of Shaq Fu online

benstylus wrote:

You madman.

SupremeSarna wrote:

If I was really a madman I would buy the Gameboy version

Hey, my brief experience with the Game Boy version wasn't that bad. It's a lot better than some other more prominent 1-vs-1 fighters the system.

Mortal Kombat on the Gameboy was pretty awful actually. Better than the GameGear version though.
Eh maybe not but they are both really bad.
And I used to be so obsessed with Street Fighter 2
and other fighting games I actually owned another terrible
Fighting game on Gameboy called Raging Fighter I think.

Quake is apparently Free on Xboxlive so I got through the first stage on that already.
I also mistakenly thought that the original Quake was also on Dreamcast.
But there is Quake 3 Arena. So technically I can still play that there.

BleedingViolet wrote:

It's a homebrew port, but it is available for DC.
https://quakedev.dcemulation.org/downloads/quakedc...

Quake's engine was made open source in 1999, so it's been ported to a lot of platforms unofficially. There's even a GBA prototype floating around!

Starting up Quake since I nominated it and bought it recently. Steam Deck is great for fps

Renaissance2K wrote:

Yeah I was seeing that too. I’ll check out that link.

Now I’ve just gotta see a youtube veedjo of it on GBA.
I really like it when people remake games for older systems like that.

My praise for the handheld versions may have been a tad premature, but at least they're in the history books.

I maintain that the Game Boy version is pretty smooth compared to some of the other ports, but the game is still "don't bother with special moves, mash those attack buttons, hope you get lucky." Like rock paper scissors between two meth addicts.

Renaissance2K wrote:

I was referring to the price, not the quality of the gb port.

Ain't no way I'm dropping triple digits on shaq fu.

OP is updated with the first of the Shaq Fu badges.

I did the leg work to get the Amiga core working on the MiSTer last night and tried out that version. It plays similarly to the two handheld ports because of the two-button controls, but the AI is much more unforgiving. Nezu is downright brutal. He has some sort of a green electric attack that puts you in a cage and makes it impossible to move. Fun.

Couldn't beat it for that reason, and ran out of continues.

I couldnt imagine putting that kind of effort into that game and not being able
to get it done because of not having infinite continues like most fighting games
seemed to have. That sucks. 😔

I'll give it one more shot, but yeah, if I lose everything to that damn kid again, I'll just stick to Genesis and SNES for the rest of the characters.

It's nice to have an Amiga environment running, though. I had no idea their library was so expansive.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Yeah, if you weren't part of the scene at the time it's pretty mind blowing how many games got released on amiga and c64.

Even more mindblowing how many people are still making games for them

Having beat Quake just last year, I won't be replaying it this soon... but I've got Quake 2 installed and looking to play it, so could I play it for the Badge instead?

Slickriven wrote:

image

I'm in a good mood. I booted up the Genesis port of Shaq Fu and blew through Duel Mode with Leotsu and Diesel. Diesel got chewed up pretty badly by the final boss, but Leotsu is a friggin' beast. Something about the game's crazy controls cause his special attacks to stack on top of regular ones, so he blows through the enemy health bar really quickly. That's three characters down.

I then stared at my MiSTer and decided if I wanted to take another shot at the Amiga port. I loaded the game up, chose Auroch, and lost four times in a row against the first fighter. Half the time it was Leotsu; the other half the time, I had no excuse. Even in two button mode, I just couldn't get the game to do what I wanted, despite tearing opponents apart with Ball & Pain the night before.

I gave myself one last shot. Other than the occasional special move, I tried to do anything fancy. While any sane fighting game would let you hold a direction to modify an attack, the Amiga port seems to do anything but. Holding down and attacking activates a shield. Holding forward makes you dash. Pure lunacy, but the counter is just to stand there like a fool and kick until a foot meets face. Repeat until squishy.

And a half-hour later...

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/175367730...

My first Amiga game in the books. I guess I need to find the mustard to do it again with another character, though, for Sarna's thread.

I got a shipping confirmation for shaq fu. So I will be able to join you within a few days, Dejoy permitting

Took another shot at the Amiga port using the kid, but couldn't manage to do anything. Switched to the Colonel and got halfway through the game just by spamming his machine gun move, which has no distance limit. I didn't win - Leotsu got me, of course - but I witnessed such trash talk brilliance as this:

image

Also... this is Shantae, right? I mean, look at her.

image

Renaissance2K wrote:

C'mon, Shantae would never wear a skull on her hea--
[imgt w=600 h=600]https://images.nintendolife.com/abe5a11a20d16/shan...[/imgt]
Oh. You may be onto something.

Victory is mine! All it cost me was my soul.

I'd been trying to play with a new character to fulfill my Amiga quota, but if Leotsu is such a badass on Genesis, why not use him on Amiga as well? Efficiency be damned!

Sure enough, his weird unintentional double combos and long reach from his bo staff made shredded chicken from the game's twelve opponents.

Okay, back to relative sanity on the Super Nintendo and Genesis to finish the game with the remaining characters...

Almost there...

I've finished Shaq Fu with Shaq, Kaori, Beast, Mephis, and Rajah on SNES; Diesel, Colonel, and Nezu on Genesis; and Leotsu and Auroch on Amiga.

I've been using a move list on Gamefaqs for my SNES playthroughs, and performing special moves was nearly impossible at first. After some headbanging, the problem seems to be that the movelist is calling for smooth Street Fighter-style quarter and half circles, but inserting the diagonals between the cardinal directions actually break things. Once I made that adjustment, I was pulling off moves more consistently. For better or worse.

Two more characters to go. I'm really gonna need some Quake after this...

Edit: The nightmare is over. I finished Duel with Voodoo and Sett Ra. Sett Ra is a beast and seems to be much more forgiving with special move commands, resulting in my fastest and highest scoring playthrough of this entire fiasco.

In collecting some Game Boy and Game Gear footage for a rainy day, I discovered that Duel Mode on Game Gear functions as a de facto Arcade Mode like the home console versions, so you can play that for a badge as well, if you hate playing as Shaq that much. And you will.

Tomorrow, we Quake.

Shaq Fu badges are all updated. Sorry about the clipping on some of them; it's hard to separate a sprite from black elements from the black background of the Character Select screen.

So... who else is gonna play this monstrosity?

I beat the story on SNES with Shaq twice. This game stinks.
[imgt w=900 h=1200]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFq3QV_W0AAhUqX?format...[/imgt]

Sett Ra is terribly unbalanced. He’s got a midair spin move that cuts through a quarter of your health and can’t be blocked or countered. Combine that with the limited continues and you’ve got a recipe for aggravating final boss.

This is not the worst game I own, for the record. That dishonor goes to Men in Black: The Series (GBC). It’s a dreadful platformer you have to see to believe.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Just waiting on the post office