Well I’ve talked about it before, but it looks like they’ve finally been released into the wild of the Apple App Store. Yes, you too can play Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II on your iPhones and iPod touches for the low low price of $8.99…wait, that’s not low at all! Eh, they still look like they’re worth getting, they sure do look purdy!

Developed by Sivak Games, Battle Kid is apparently the first platformer to be released for the NES in 15 years. The official game description reads as follows:

“After having uncovered a plot to build a Supermech, you head to an ancient high-tech fortress in an effort to prevent this weapon from being completed. You must navigate through the various sectors of the fortress, while battling its denizens and avoiding its many dangers. Along the way, you will uncover items that will allow progress to new locations of the fortress and grant you new abilities. Over 550 rooms, more than 30 enemy types, and 8 bosses stand between you and victory. Also featured are five difficulty settings and a password system.”

They’ve been floating around the internet for a day or two, but we’ve finally got our hands on them. It’s definitely a 2-D sonic that is going to be a throwback to the ‘good’ Sonic games of the past. I’m just surprised I’m making this post instead of good ol’ Gibbo, because we all know that the Sonic the Hedgehog stuff is his forte.

Bethesda and Splash Damage were kind enough to share with us, a few new screenshots of their game Brink that is set to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. The game utilizes the id Tech 4 engine, which provides some of the smoothest looking screenshots I’ve ever seen.

All of you Retrotards out there that are worth your salt know and love Blaster Master on the NES/Genesis…well now we’re getting a completely overhauled and rendered looking version of the game from the NES…on the Wii as a WiiWare download, and it’ll be available tomorrow! Well I can’t say that I enjoy the music at all, but it does have a slight nostalgia attached to it. Good news is that it’s still being made by Sunsoft of all companies! This makes me wonder…will there be a Fester’s Quest sequel? How about a port of Gremlins 2? That’d be wicked.

Perusing the GoG website this morning, I noticed that they’ve now started adding classic Activision PC games to their library. This is magical news to retro-tards like me, this just got really real…especially for the few games they’ve announced and what may come in the future. All I can say right now is…HELL YEAH Gabriel Knight!

Let me get this out there right now. There is in my mind, no better example of a platforming game and no “Mario” game that comes as close to perfection than Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo. I love this game like no other, and I’m sure that there are thousands if not millions of gamers out there who would agree with me. However there is something serious that occurs when I play it that makes me despise myself entirely.

My problem is that I become a Super Mario World savant because of the OCD that this game brings out of my personality. I can’t simply finish a red-dotted level and leave it be…I MUST finish them any and every way possible before I can move onto the next level.

This behavior isn’t merely limited to the fact that I can’t leave a stage without being satisfied that I’ve finished it properly. It extends to the my atrocious behavior of having to travel back across the whole fucking map of Super Mario World, just so I can visit the “Top Secret Area”…I even do this in co-op play, much to the chagrin of anyone I’ve duped into playing with me.

I’m not kidding…I’ve found myself sometimes travelling from places as far as The Valley of Bowser all the way back to Donut Plains to get Yoshi and some powerups. It’s hardcore…and it’s completely retarded. In fact, this may have been before I started exhibiting the other OCD tick I have about finishing levels that I mentioned earlier.

Upon realization that the red-dotted levels had secret exits (which in some areas, was pretty damn easy to figure out) and that it meant that there was more than one path that would be cleared once you finished them…the game got busted wide open. Suddenly I found myself in Star World and Special World, which in my tiny, tiny world…I knew that I was seeing areas that few of my friends had ever seen.

I would love it if I could have a playthrough that would emulate that of a normal ‘happy-go-lucky’ person does, trouncing through Dinosaur Land with no cares at all. Nope, can’t ever happen. I am always compelled to play the game with machine precision, otherwise it just doesn’t feel right to me.

If there’s one genre of games I think is getting the shaft over and over again that made me fall in love with gaming in the first place, it would have to be the beat ‘em ups. These games were just notorious for eating a roll of quarters faster than a German in a Mentos commercial. The funniest thing is that many of us didn’t seem to mind doing so.

I wince when I think of all the cash that I’ve dumped into the arcades in my formative years playing these games, all of that cash that could have gone to something more worthwhile like delicious snack foods or maybe saved in my own pocket so I could afford more cartridges for my Sega Master System or my Nintendo. The biggest offence are the ones that I had beaten so many times before but I continued to play and play over and over again.

Tonight’s list are just those, the games where you too might remember playing through multiple times, but wouldn’t mind going back and doing it all again…there’s no better word to describe them than classic.

This PAX, I had the opportunity to talk with the Design Director of Telltale Games, Dave Grossman, who is a personal idol of mine.  Why’s that you ask?  Dave Grossman was one of the core designers of the classic The Secret of Monkey Island, the game I attribute for getting into video games.  He also contributed to the development of such titles as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, Day of the Tentacle, and the Pajama Sam series before coming to Telltale Games.  Today, he’s busy finishing up the latest episodic epic entry to the Monkey Island series, Tales of Monkey Island.  Read on for the full interview.

We mostly raged actually but laughing makes for a better headline.

Recently I got the privilege of seeing what a red ring of death was like first-hand.  A longer string of expletives I have never uttered.  At first I was distraught because I was in the thick of a delicious zombie game sandwich (Resident Evil 5/Fallout 3/Left 4 Dead).  After staring blankly at the screen for the greater part of an hour and weeping like a child, I started weighing my options.  I had the thing far too long to validate any warranty, and even if it still was within the time frame, I’d already voided said warranty a couple times over.  I put it aside and tried to think of what would fill my waking hours.

I think all of the advocating for Earthworm Jim to be the next Sega Genesis title to be released on Xbox Live might be moot after reading that Interplay has granted Gameloft rights to publish the title anywhere it sees fit…including iPhone, if they so wish.

Coming from a guy who was a serious PC gamer in the late 80s to the mid-90s, I have a real soft spot in my heart for anything Wing Commander related…yes even the horrible Matthew Lillard movie with gerbil themed Kilrathi.

Looking at the ESRB today, I noticed that there’s a few re-release games coming up that I think would warrant a purchase on PSN. Yup, three excellent survival horror classics are coming back to life on the system that bore them originally. Good work there Capcom.

Alot of this footage is stuff you’ve seen already here. But there’s a couple of new things for you all to gawk at. I still can’t wait to have this game in my library. Adventure games forever!!!