Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved has come a long way from its initial release as a minigame.  Since, it’s been amped up into a fully developed Xbox 360 console game, and now it’s coming to Vista users everywhere.  Apparently, both Geometry Wars and Uno appeared in Microsoft’s CES keynote video.  So if you have a Vista, get ready for some cross-platform competition in these awesome games!  Check out the video here.

Nintendo NES

Baseball
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr
Gradius
Ice Hockey
Mario Bros
Pinball
Soccer
Solomon’s Key
Super Mario Bros
Tennis
The Legend of Zelda
Urban Champion
Wario’s Woods

NEC PC Engine / TURBO GRAFX

Alien Crush
Bomberman ‘93
Bonk’s Adventure
Dungeon Explorer
Military Madness
Moto Roader
R-Type
Soldier Blade
Super Star Soldier
Victory Run

SEGA MEGADRIVE

Altered Beast
Columns
Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
Ecco The Dolphin
Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
Ristar
Sonic the Hedgehog
Space Harrier II
Toe Jam & Earl

Nintendo SNES

Donkey Kong Country
F-Zero
Sim City
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
Super Castlevania IV

Nintendo 64

Super Mario 64

Also, it’s important to note that all of the NES games cost 500 points, the NEC games are 600 points each, the Sega Megadrive and SNES games are 800 a piece, and the Nintendo 64 games are 1000 a pop.  Also, it seems like the selection is pretty unbalance, with there being far more NEC games available than SNES or N64 games.  When are we going to see some classics like Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, or even Super Mario World?

Project Apollo has had this list up for a while, but I’m mentioning it because it hasn’t had as much exposure as it should!  The magnanimous list I’m referring to is none other than The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés, which sports many laughter-inducing clichés for those familiar with console RPGs.  Here are 12 of my favorites:

3. Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule)
No matter what she’s accused of doing or how mysterious her origins are, the hero will always be ready to fight to the death for any girl he met three seconds ago.

7. Some Call Me… Tim?
Good guys will only have first names, and bad guys will only have last names. Any bad guy who only has a first name will become a good guy at some point in the game. Good guys’ last names may be mentioned in the manual but they will never be referred to in the story.

10. Luddite Rule (or, George Lucas Rule)
Speaking of which, technology is inherently evil and is the exclusive province of the Bad Guys. They’re the ones with the robots, factories, cyberpunk megalopolises and floating battle stations, while the Good Guys live in small villages in peaceful harmony with nature. (Although somehow your guns and/or heavily armed airships are exempted from this.)

24. Capitalism Is A Harsh Mistress
Once you sell something to a shopkeeper, he instantly sells it to somebody else and you will never see the item again no matter what.

27. Nostradamus Rule
All legends are 100% accurate. All rumors are entirely factual. All prophecies will come true, and not just someday but almost immediately.

76. Magical Inequality Theorem
In the course of your travels you may find useful-sounding spells such as Petrify, Silence, and Instant Death. However, you will end up never using these spells in combat because a) all ordinary enemies can be killed with a few normal attacks, making fancy attacks unneccessary, b) all bosses and other stronger-than-average monsters are immune to those effects so there’s no point in using them for long fights where they’d actually come in handy, and c) the spells usually don’t work anyway.

77. Magical Inequality Corollary
When the enemy uses Petrify, Silence, Instant Death, et cetera spells on you, they will be effective 100% of the time.

87. Supply and Demand Axiom
Killing a powerful enemy will usually yield an item or weapon that would’ve been extremely useful if you had gotten it before killing that enemy.

115. Law of Scientific Gratification
If the hero needs a new invention to progress, he will find out that somewhere in the world someone has spent his or her entire life perfecting this invention, and usually just needs one more key item located in a monster-infested dungeon before it is completed.

143. Falling Rule
An RPG character can fall any distance onto anything without suffering anything worse than brief unconsciousness. In fact, falling a huge distance is an excellent cure for otherwise fatal wounds — anyone who you see shot, stabbed, or mangled and then tossed off a cliff is guaranteed to return later in the game with barely a scratch.

172. Golden Chocobo Principle
There will be at least one supremely ultimate improvement for your weapon or some way to make your trusted steed capable of going anywhere and doing anything, requiring hours and hours of hard work to acquire. Once you do achieve this, you will use it once, and it will be completely useless for the rest of the game.

173. Golden Chocobo Corollary
The magic formula for acquiring this supreme upgrade will be only vaguely alluded to in the game itself. Ideally, you’re supposed to shell out $19.95 for the strategy guide instead.

 Be sure to check out the complete list of 192 hilarious console RPG clichés at Project Apollo.

DigitalBattle has the word that the fan remake of the legendary N64 classic The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time in 2D has made progress.  The news come from a thread at SomethingAwful forums, which states:

Daniel Barras, an old friend of mine, has announced that Release Candidate 1 of OoT2D will be released soon. He’s waiting on his laptop to be airmailed to him (and he probably needs to put a couple finishing touches on it).

The game is basically the 2D translation of Ocarina of Time for N64. It will include everything from the original game, and i BELEIVE he was intentionally coding in the glitches found in 1.0 gold cart, but i’m unsure if this will still be a feature. It will also include a special dungeon and 3 extra items (i think it’s armor, boots, and another sword. The only thing i can say for sure is the armor).

Regardless of whether this project to remake the classic Zelda game is real or not, the screens still look great.  Check them the screenshots below:

• Darkstalkers
• Shining Force
• Battletoads
• Strider
• Killer Instinct
• Vectorman
• Starcraft
• System Shock
• Road Rash
• PowerStone

I am a Pacman Ghost.

I like to hang around with friends, chatting, dancing, all that sort of thing. We don’t appreciate outsiders, and do our best to discourage others approaching us. I enjoy occasionally wandering around randomly, and often find that when I do so, I get to where I wanted to be. What Video Game Character Are You?

This has to be possibly the coolest online survey ever. It manages to dig deep into your personality without posing horribly blunt questions, and I didn’t feel emo taking it! Plus it allows you to give as many answers as you want, or none at all!

In honor of The Legend of Zelda’s twentieth anniversary, here’s an evolutionary diagram of Link over the years, culminating with Twilight Princess’s Link on the right. This is just begging to be put on a t-shirt.

Bonus points* for anyone who can rattle ‘em all off. Double bonus points for anyone who can figure out which Link is (sort of) missing.

See also:
Old school Zelda rap commercial
Happy Birthday Zelda! 20 years old today

*current exchange rate: 1 Bonus Point™ = $0.00

Repair Damage: Fix damage incurred to your castle
Upgrade Walls: Increase your castle’s ability to withstand the onslaught
Temple: With this upgrade, you can drop enemy units (gently) into your castle to convert them to your side. These converts can be trained or deployed as kamikazee units.
Archery Range: Train archers to defend your castle automatically
Workshop: Train craftsmen to repair your castle automatically
Mana Pool: Train wizards to use powerful spells
Demolition Lab: Allows you to deploy kamikazee units by clicking the convert icons below your castle hitpoints. Click the unit to detonate.

My strategy is to buy a Temple, and then an Archery Range as soon as possible after that, training my converts into archers. Then I skip the Workshop and the Demolition Lab, and save up for the Mana Poll. It is crucial to get the Mana Pool because wizards have powerful spells such as instant kill, massive explosion, and instant conversion. Thus you can eventually begin to compound the number of converts you get, and the rate at which you get them, by investing in wizards. It gets extremely simple when you have a sufficient amount of converts there is literally nothing left to do!

Even though the stick figures have buffed-up, do more damage, and run extremely fast, they are of little challenge to take out because I have 1630 archers, 728 craftsmen, and 215 wizards. You should get over 200 wizards so that mana-regeneration doesn’t become a problem.

That’s right. I didn’t get bored until I got to the 59th stage of Defend Your Castle and had acquired over 13 million points. That’s how addicting it is. Two thumbs up for this flash game! You can play it here.