It's been a month since I last posted to this blog, and a whole lot has happened in the interim. Let's take a quick look at some of the highlights... and lowlights.
XBOX AND THE RISING COST OF FAILURE
Things begin to feel a bit like Christmas in late October, but if you're an Xbox owner, it's beginning to look a lot more like 2001, weeks before Sega announced the end of the Dreamcast. It may even be worse than what happened to the Dreamcast, because while that system dropped its price to $99 to stave off the grim reaper, Microsoft seems to be inviting death by raising the cost of the Xbox Series. An Xbox Series X will now cost you $599.95, and that's the disc-less wonder that is the all-digital version. Not exactly the sale of the century, is it?
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| Remember Microsoft Game Room? This is somehow worse. (image from AllKeyShop) |
The price of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service has also been bumped up, to thirty dollars a month. I subscribed for three months while I could get it for the original price, and frankly, it's not worth twenty bucks, let alone thirty. Retro Classics, the service-within-a-service that grants you access to Activision's Atari 2600 games, is chained to the cloud and completely worthless if you don't have a fast internet connection. I found myself crushing the D-pad of my controller to force the characters to creep across the screen, and that's no way to play forty year old titles like HERO and Pitfall, which NEED crisp, responsive control for them to be viable as games. You couldn't just let the player download the games directly to their Xboxes? The games in Atari 50 are directly on the system, and that direct access makes all the difference in how they look and feel. Poorly played, Microsoft... although that seems to be a habit of yours as of late.
INTELLIVISION SPRINT
Not long after purchasing the Intellivision brand name, Atari went right to work, making a mini console that better represents the original system than the failed Amico would have. This machine, the Sprint, features two wireless controllers, HDMI video, and about forty games from the Intellivision library. (Before you ask, no, not the Tron games. No, not the Data East arcade conversions, either. Yeah, I don't really see the point of this console without those games, either.)
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| Punching bag shaped like George Plimpton sold separately. (image from AtariAge) |
The Sprint will debut at the end of the year for $150. At that price, I'm not biting, but last year's Atari 7800+ was quickly discounted, and it's reasonable to expect the same thing to happen to the Sprint. (Provided anyone can afford anything in 2026.)
XELAN FORCE
"You got your Star Force in my Zanac!"
"Hey, you got YOUR Zanac in my Star Force!"
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| There are even hints of Life Force, as evidenced in this flame-filled stage. (image from Nintendo) |
It's two great NES games that taste great together, on the Switch! Xelan Force is exactly one part Star Force, with ground panels holding stars and other bonuses, and one part Zanac, with six distinct weapon types, five sub-weapons, and tiny power capsules delivered by fleets of blue drones.
It's a smart hybrid, with the flaws of one game addressed by the strengths of the other. Star Force lacked variety... Zanac's diverse weaponry addresses this. Zanac lacked hidden bonuses to boost your score, while Star Force is full of them. Finally, the bosses, a weak point in both Star Force and Zanac, are more memorable and challenging in Xelan Force. (Maybe too challenging, considering their tiny weak points and resistance to your bullets.)
It's not clear if Xelan Force could literally run on a Nintendo Entertainment System, but it certainly looks and sounds like it would fit on the system. If it had been an NES game back in the day, it's fair to say that Xelan Force would have been one of the better shooters in the system's library.
OPERATION HIBERNATION PLUS
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| Buy my game! Buy my game! BUY MY GAME! |
Yes, I'm promoting one of my games again. If I don't do it, who will? This time it's Operation Hibernation Plus, an expanded version of my old-school platformer with Byron feeding his face to prepare himself for the winter. Now there's an attract mode, and two new stages, and a friggin' ending, on a video game system released in 1983! The video game system in question is the SG-1000, Japan's answer to the ColecoVision, in the same way Junichiro Hill was Japan's answer to Hank.
You don't need the actual system to play Operation Hibernation Plus... a properly equipped emulator will do the job just as well. Personally, I use GearSystem. It might even work on a Sega Master System, although I've gotten conflicting reports on that. Any way you play it, you'll probably enjoy it, all the more so if you were less than satisfied with Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3 as sequels to the first game.
Here's the link to the game, as well as the other stuff I've been working on over the last couple of years. Itch.IO seems to be down at the moment, but that link will work eventually.
