Our Retrospective Overload continues unabated, and this time we’re heading back 17 years to 1994. You can find other articles in this series (and our previous Retrospectives) through this link.

The Super NES and I have an interesting history. It’s a relatively brief one too, as I’ve only owned one since college. For reasons that seem almost inexplicable more than a decade later, I was a Sega Genesis kid; I probably liked the advertisements and Sonic the Hedgehog, but these are sheer guesses as opposed to recollection of facts. Regardless, I remember ripping open a package on Christmas morning and being greeted by the Genesis and Sonic 2 and that was that.

That meant that, in its proper time period, I never had a SNES. My exposure was limited to playing at my friends’ house down the street and, being kids, there were just some things we didn’t really know. I sampled many SNES classics, like Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and more. But things slip through the cracks, and that’s why I’ve never played Super Metroid.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up Electronic Gaming Monthly‘s 2003 featuring discussing the best games of all time — and this Super Metroid game topped the list. I mean, the name was familiar — the GameCube Metroid Prime games had hit by that time, after all — but still: What the hell? How could I have never heard of what my spiritual guide, EGM, was telling me was the greatest game of all time? After that moment of bewilderment I probably went back to playing something on the Xbox and thinking about high school, but that surprise has stuck with me ever since.

The re-release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Xbox Live Arcade was Doug's "Metroidvania" gateway drug.

My appreciation for Metroid began with the Xbox Live Arcade update of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Many games (including recent handheld Castlevanias and XBLA exclusive Shadow Complex) can lay claim to being in the “Metroidvania” genre, but the two high-water marks are Symphony of the Night and — of course — Super Metroid. After devouring SotN twice through, I was sold on the concept. And now I’m finally taking the time to go through its spiritual predecessor.

What really can be said to judge Super Metroid, though? It’s practically perfect. I really have nothing to add to the echo chamber. The graphics are straight out of 1994 but the execution is superb;  I honestly think 16-bit games have aged better than 8-bit games, so there are no complaints from me. The sound is amazing, both in quality and in execution, with the music hanging like a light aural fog as you unfold the game. After the initial hour or so spent flailing around and gaining my footing, I’ve come to grips with what the game wants me to do and the controls are tight enough to allow it. My only real complaint is that it handles tracking down upgrades in a more obsessive-compulsive manner than Symphony of the Night did; the map sprawled out a bit more in that PlayStation classic, whereas in Super Metroid it’s about shooting and bombing every wall imaginable.

Despite those OCD demands, I’m finding the puzzle elements of the platforming more rewarding than some of the better platformer offspring of the last few years. Games like Braid and Limbo put more emphasis on the puzzles as opposed to twitchy action and combat — it’s an interesting twist on the genre and a big difference, but the design of puzzles in Super Metroid brings it to mind. Though Nick may disagree, the final puzzles feel too punishingly hard. While Super Metroid may inspire you to bomb every room corner in a feeble attempt to figure out which way is next, the game itself doesn’t feel as smug or clever in the way those new platformers do when solving the puzzles.

If you've played Super Metroid a number of times, you'll recognize where Doug is in the game and what power-up he'd just found.

The most impressive aspect of Super Metroid has to be the way the game guides you through the process of upgrading, exploration and improvement — all the way to the end of the game. It doesn’t bring up a signpost that says “You can’t go here yet”; the most obvious way the game explains this is by the missile/super missile-coded doorways. Also impressive was when I followed my nose down to Norfair and tried to enter a room that instantly almost killed me. Time to go find the anti-heat suit! The Metroidvania trope of making you collect all your power-ups via exploration certainly is definitely a trope for a good reason, but damned if it doesn’t work. So many games can learn from the mantra “show, don’t tell” that Super Metroid makes use of so well.

I may be quite a few years behind when it comes to appreciating Super Metroid, and even then arrived after detouring to visit games that simply aped the master. But when it comes down to it, Super Metroid has not aged one iota.

Thanksgiving provides you with plenty of time to dust off the classics.

Oh, lordy, we have a lot to talk about this week.

As promised, the Thanksgiving break provided plenty of time for us to get our proverbial, collective game on. From holiday smash hits like Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, to tried-and-true games and classics…lots of titles this week. LOTS. Let’s cut the garbage and just get to the breakdown…

This is probably where you expect me to pull out an Ahnold reference and say, "Get to dee choppa!" Well, you'd be right.

Aaron

Two weeks after the last Backlog, and what do I have to share? Aside from me eating Thanksgiving leftovers for a week and a half, I finally finished a few games that remained on my more metaphorical plate.

Modern Warfare 2 has been my most-played title lately, and it was given to me as an early Christmas present by a dear friend. I have him to blame for the two-and-a-half days spent on it so far.

Though I was extremely skeptical of what another Modern Warfare title had to offer (as the trailers made it look like the first, but with “Extra BIG Explosions!! ®”), I’m pleased to say it’s more than exceeded my non-existent expectations. I’ll save the highs and lows for my review next week, but Infinity Ward has done three things I didn’t think were possible for the Call of Duty franchise: re-tooled multiplayer to be fun again, provided a shorter and sweeter (though flawed) campaign, and created another amazing co-op mode that is unique to the series. Now if they can ban the Javelin missle trick exploiters, I’ll be pleased.

Outside of frat boy gaming favorites, I took the time to complete both The Ballad of Gay Tony and Brütal Legend. A review of Gay Tony will be going up this week, but I’ll say here that it’s a nice bookend to the Grand Theft Auto IV universe. Rockstar’s latest DLC has a few quirks I’m not too fond of — namely the new post-mission Rockstar Social Club score card — yet the team brought their A-game to showcase a new set of protagonists that are the best Grand Theft Auto characters I’ve ever seen. GTA IV had a fantastic script to begin with, but Gay Tony’s cast is infinitely easier to relate to. It’s a big step for the series’ character development.

Brütal Legend was good. Honestly, that’s all I feel like writing about it.

I do feel disappointed, as the game was one of our most anticipated titles for awhile now. It’s certainly not bad or broken in my opinion (yes, even considering the “RTS” elements), but it just feels like it fell short of its massive potential. Overall, this was an interesting game to play through. I loved it one minute, loathed it the next, and then eventually came to rest on a metaphysical plane of indifference toward it.

I hope Tim Schafer isn’t upset at me now.

Machinarium marries a beautiful, hand-painted art style with adventure gaming, two rarities in modern gaming.

Nick

Life teaches us that every time a door closes, another one opens.

Well, it turns out that when you slam the door on a game, a bunch of great ones you’ve forgotten about spring back and scold you for ignoring them. I learned this upon completing Ubisoft’s excellent Assassin’s Creed 2, the sequel to one of modern gaming’s most controversial titles — and a personal favorite of mine. By resolving so many of its predecessor’s problems (repetition, occasionally flat storytelling) and illuminating its strengths (a novel approach to historical fiction, fantastically rendered cities), Assassin’s Creed 2 is a massive and hugely gratifying experience. It was so engaging, in fact, that I earned every achievement over the course of 25 solid hours of gameplay — without a single frustrating sequence or major design flaw to dampen my impressions of the game.

With Assassin’s Creed 2 put to rest, I dove into a couple of unassuming but deviously creative independent adventure games. The first, Windosill, is free to play online or download at windosill.com…until you reach the halfway point. The game then asks for three dollars to complete the experience, which amounts to a mere pittance for the sheer amount of ingenuity packed into the game. To describe the experience would spoil it, but seeing as it’s free to try you might as well pop it open in another browser tab and save it for later. Many big-budget retail games are less inspired than this little Flash-based toy, which I’d recommend to anyone who can appreciate an artistic puzzle.

The second game is Machinarium. Created by indie developer Amanita Design, Machinarium is a charming game about a little robot’s journey to find something in the big city. Beautiful, distinctive backgrounds and a haunting musical score combine to make one of the most memorable games I’ve ever encountered. Every character is animated with endearing exaggeration, making for a game that manages to say quite a lot without a single written or spoken word. Machinarium is also free to try online here — make sure you take a look.

And finally, I succumbed to the siren song of slashed prices and picked up a brand new copy of DJ Hero, FreeStyleGames’ turntable-based rhythm game. After the lackluster evolution of the Guitar Hero series in Neversoft’s hands and the inexplicable existence of Band Hero, it’s wonderful to see a new franchise debut on such a high note. The game and peripheral are both rock-solid at their core, combining to create a music game that doesn’t play like anything else on the market. (Move over, Beatmania — you’ve got nothing on this game.) Even as an expert Rock Band musician, I found myself forced to start out on Hard before just recently bumping up to expert. Fortunately there’s no punishment for ambition — you can’t ever fail out of a song. That’s good news if you, like me, get a little carried away with some of the catchier mixes in the game. Gorillaz’ “Feel Good Inc.” mixed with Blondie’s “Atomic”? “Bittersweet Symphony” with 2Pac’s “All Eyes on Me”? Yeah. It’s rad.

Why oh why did I wait so long to finally dig into Super Metroid?

Doug

Here it is – the quiet after the storm. Not only for the fall release Armageddon, but also in my school term. This means, of course, more time for gaming! And that’s a very good thing.

Subject number one is, easily, Forza 3. I’m still loving the experience of playing through the single-player, and I wish I could find more time to hop online and race with my friends on Xbox Live. I love the race cars in the game — the sounds, the sensation of speed, the feel of the grip and aerodynamics…hell, you can even feel the engines struggling to gasp for air against their inlet restrictors from time to time (this is realistic and makes me happy). That the game recognizes the racing series-mandated restrictors is one thing; that you can pay to remove them is another, and shows the care that Turn 10 paid to this game. And the feel of the restrictors on engine performance is icing on the realism cake, so to speak.

I’ve also been back on the NCAA 10 bandwagon. It still has its faults, and I would pay good Microsoft spacebucks for DLC that updated the uniforms with Oregon’s real ones for this year, but the offensive gameplanning and gameplay is still pretty sweet. Defense isn’t so bad, either. It’s candy for my brain, and I enjoy it.

While I want to spend more time on Brütal Legend (and likely will this weekend), I did get the chance to put time into another single-player game: Super Metroid. I’m becoming a big fan of this style of game design (hello, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night!), and haven’t played this one yet, so I fired up the ol’ emulator and took it to task. And I also got far enough in the game to frustratingly die and lose an hour’s worth of progress. Definitely digging the ambience and mood behind the game as well — I want to play it with headphones on to get the full audio experience.