For the first time, I've decided that I'll release reviews for a series of games in a row. As I promised a No One Lives Forever review last week, that will (obviously) be the first thing pushed out the door. The review will be done very shortly, and the videos have already been uploaded in preparation for the written review being completed. I've already begun playing No One Lives Forever 2 and capturing video, so that comes next, followed by Contract Jack (which I'm sure will be the first game I review that I haven't beaten). I'm going to do some kind of weird split screen comparison video between all three games once the reviews for each are done in order to give a good idea of the major graphical differences between the games in the series (the biggest difference being between NOLF and NOLF2).

As I'm working on reviews somewhat simultaneously for NOLF and NOLF 2 (and the videos for NOLF being done already) I've been playing through NOLF 2. Its gameplay mechanics are obviously superior to the original, but story wise and pacing wise (thus far) it is very good but not as stellar as the original. The interesting thing that has changed (other than a couple of the voice actors) is that there is always more than one way to complete a mission (my only gripe with NOLF).

As always, I played a good amount of Left 4 Dead. The airport terminal level in Survivor is now my favorite level. Along with a couple of friends and a random internet person, my best time on that level is in excess of 13 minutes (Gold Medal baby!). Standing on top of/in front of the newstand was our strategy, and it works very well...although the AI director got really angry at us and punished us after this 13 minute stand. I'm still awful at the Last Stand survivor level, and if anyone has a good strategy for this (I can get bronze, gotten fairly close to silver, gold is way out of reach) to get the gold, let me know. As always, contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any questions/comments/concerns.

I've been playing a whole lot of Super Mario Galaxy. As I finally got a Wii, I figured it would be an excellent game to really get into, and I have not been dissapointed. Save for a couple of what the heck moments that are just a little too cutesy Super Mario Sunshine-ish, it is an excellent game that I highly recommend. Interestingly enough, I think my Wii is getting a little confused on the save games for it, as it seems to swallow a few of my lives everytime I load my save on it. I'm serious when I say that it ate my lives from 11 down to 5 when I loaded a save...something I'll have to figure out before I get too much further in.

As the Left 4 Dead gigantic update just came out, I've been playing that pretty heavily the last 2 days. Survivor mode is the biggest new addition, and I will say its awesome to a point...and then the AI director decides to throw two tanks, two smokers, and three hunters at you right after the entire team gets boomered on. There are three medal levels for time survived...4 minutes for bronze, 7 for silver, and 10 for gold. 4 minutes is doable maybe 1/3 of the time on any given map, but much beyond that and you better have good teammates and a better strategy. 7 minutes is very difficult and probably happens 1/15, and I've yet to hit gold on any surivor map. They seem to have a "remove any exploit/strategy that makes things easy" strategy, which ends up meaning there is no longer a room under the stairs in the Death Toll concluding level, and that stuff that may be relatively doable in Campaign is really tough. In the elevator wait level in Survivor mode, I played with a team that wandered around trying to break down locked doors to best find a room that had only one entry. Eventually they found one, and we finally got silver on the level after playing through it about 15 times.

Finally, I'm putting together my review and video for my review of No One Lives Forever. I hope to have the video and review out within the next few days. I took probably a full terabyte of fraps video of the game, which I cut down on heavily to just the good stuff that'll work in a video (hint...VDUB is your friend). One thing I'm thinking about for future reviews is whether or not I actually I should beat a game before reviewing it, or if I should just play it until my opinion of it has stopped changing. So far I've done reviews only on games I have played all the way through in preparation for review. I'm thinking I'll continue that process for really good games, and perhaps play lesser games until my opinion is formed (in the case of some Dreamcast games, 15 minutes is more than adequate).

As always, comments or questions can be directed to my email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Recently, the composite audio jack on my NES console broke, after soldering a RCA cable onto the audio header so I could get sound again, I decided to look into buying a NES clone, to help reduce every day wear and tear on my aging console. I picked up a Retro Duo NES clone at a local retailer and have been comparing its performance with my original NES. So far, I have come to the conclusion that this clone provides a passable NES experience for average users, but will fall short for those who have become familiar with the way their games play on official hardware.

I was able to pick up this clone on sale for $35. For that price, in addition to the console and AC adapter, it came with two SNES style controllers and a nice AV cable with three composite and one s-video cable. The first thing I noticed after removing it from the packaging was that the build quality felt very cheap. But I can't complain for $35. The controllers are no different in their build quality. The directional pad is very stiff and one of the controllers seems to have stopped working after an hour of play testing. Fortunately, this machine can use normal SNES controllers, so I plan on picking up two of those to replace the packaged controllers. While I would prefer to use the official NES controllers, the ones that come packaged with the Retro Duo are at least usable, even if they are a bit klugey.

Connecting the AV cables and power adapter was no different than any other piece of equipment. Although I could not get the s-video out to display in anything other than black and white. It may be that my receiver does not like the s-video connection that came with the console, but composite video is more than enough to play NES games. One thing that stood out to me about this console is that it splits the mono audio out of the NES to both speakers, saving the need to use a splitter.

One of the few advantages of the Retro Duo over the NES, is that when you insert a cartridge and hit the power button, you can be almost certain that the game will boot. Unlike the NES, which takes some fiddling around with at times to get games to boot. Part of this is because the Retro Duo does not bother with the copy protection checks that were in the official NES, which prevent the console from booting if the cart is not in the slot just perfect. The other part, is because the Retro Duo takes a death grip to your cart. There is no eject button, like the one you would find on an official Super Nintendo, so you will have to yank the cart out of the console to swap out the game. Not sure if this death grip is good for the cart, but it makes it so games boot nearly 100% of the time.

But even if the game boots, that does not mean that it will work correctly. Since the Retro Duo and all the other NES clones out there are basically just glorified emulators, compatibility is a problem. So far I have tested; Snake Rattle N' Roll, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda 2, Base Wars and Earthbound Zero. All of which worked, with minor glitches that would only be noticed by someone who had played the same game on an official console. The biggest issue is sound, some sounds have noticeable noise in them, while others sound very quiet and some don't render at all. For example; In base wars, the music sounds staticy on very short or notes at a higher pitch. At the end of a level in Super Mario Bros.3, as the score is being tallied, rather than hear a rapid succession of beeps as the score increases, the console just renders out one single long beep. Also in Mario Bros. 3 as Raccoon Mario, when pressing the A button to hover, the sound does not play, or is barely audible. In base Wars, the voice of the umpire is more distorted than it sounds on the NES in addition to being much quieter. For the most part, the only people who would even notice these things are those who have played these games extensively on the NES and actually care about the complete audio experience.

From the selection I took to test the Retro Duo, most of the graphical glitches were also minor. The most noticeable thing was that blues look somewhat purple, especially in skies and water. Other colors like greens, yellows and whites also look muddy and unclear. Edges of some sprites and text also looked distorted on the clone. But I did not experience anything that prevented me from playing the games. From this small selection of games, the clone does a good enough job of rendering the graphics to get most players through their play sessions, but don't expect anything quite like an official NES.

Feel free to take a look at the screen shots and videos that accompany this article, to help you make the decision to buy a Retro Duo, or go hunt down a NES. Either way, they are not difficult to find and only have about a $20 price difference, depending on where you shop. It is worth mentioning that this system also plays Super Nintendo games in addition to NES games (although I have not had much opportunity to see how well it performs for SNES games, except for a brief test of Star Fox in the store where I bought the machine).

If you want a true NES experience, to play the games exactly the way they were meant to be rendered, buy an NES and take care of it. If you really don't care if you are getting a 100% accurate representation then the Retro Duo may fit your needs. Personally, I am going to continue to use my Frankensteined NES until it decides to kick the bucket. I will use the Retro Duo if I am heading over to a friend's place, or have someone coming over who has a habit of breaking things, but thats about it.

The reviews are coming, I promise! We'll be releasing a review very shortly for Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 on the Dreamcast. We've beaten the game more than once (most recently a couple of days ago) so at the least it can be said we thoroughly played the game before posting a review. As you may also noticed, Pen Pen Trilcelon was played, and after having a massive headache and nausea for a couple hours, we are back as good as new (hint...don't play it...ever...you have been warned).

The game I've been playing the most in the last week has been Sega Tennis 2K2, the renamed sequel of Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast. While it took me a little while to get into it because of general confusion (hint...when in World Tour mode, it's good to read the map so you actually know when events happen you can compete in), it is easily the best tennis game I've ever played (anyone saying Mario Tennis is better is living in a dreamland...let me know when you beat the level with the moving court sections).

I also played a fair amount of what I consider to be the best Mario themed game (that isn't a Super Mario game), Mario Golf on the N64. It is an excellent game of golf, and fairly representative of the game without getting too cutesy and having weird power-ups like the later implementation of the game. One thing I will say after having played it a bit is that Bowser is horrible in that game...he seems to have no regard for where the ball goes. Every other character (even the ones that have gigantic draws or fades) at least hits it in the vicinity of where the aim is...Bowser hits it a mile, but not necessarily where it should have gone. Overall though, excellent game of golf that is extremely well done, nearly on par with some of the best Tiger Woods games.

As always, feel free to email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any questions/comments/concerns. And yes, Pen Pen Trilcelon did really make me physically ill.

As you may be expecting, we at retropixels will be pushing out our initial podcasts in the next few days. Both ITGeek and myself have finally recieved the last of our equipment, and we are in the process of figuring out what works best for recording. We'll be using Behringer C-1u mic's that in my opinion are excellent mic's, if only because they are USB and don't require a mixer or seperate phantom power (and they make me sound good on playback, so that's something). I'm also working on a retropixels song, but you'll have to wait until I'm done to get any hints on what that'll be like.

I've played through Ready 2 Rumble: Round 2 on the Dreamcast, as I'm about to release a review for it in the next day or two. Although I've played it many times before, it is as always a fun boxing game that has style oozing out the sides (but it is not perfect). I've also played some more Dynamite Cop (even though its been reviewed) as a test run with ITGeek for doing game commentary while playing games worked/sounded. The results aren't in yet, but I think with a little tweaking we'll be just fine.

In addition to all that, my Dreamcast video cable seems to have taken a dump as I'm getting no video or audio. My Dreamcast hasn't been working for a while, so when I went to see if it was working yesterday, the sides of the plug on the video cable fell off, leading me to wonder. All that goes through is static, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the cable and not the system. I'll borrow someones cable for now to see if it decides to work again, otherwise I'm just going to go buy the cheapest Dreamcast I can find.

As always, feel free to e-mail me any questions or concerns. The new email address for me is: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

As you may well have figured out by now, there have been a few changes on the site in preparation for a big content pushout in the next couple of weeks. The written review for Freedom Force is done, and I am now solely focused on putting together it's video.

I'll be the first to admit that I am (at times) easily distracted. I've been playing Burnout: Paradise a lot more than I would care to admit on the PC. It's probably the most entertaining racing game I've ever played (although I think some of the earlier Need for Speed games were excellent as well). Despite not having even touched the multiplayer (and the multiplayer is somethng to behold from what I've heard) there is a ton of stuff to do in the game. As with the earlier Burnout games, there is a lot more than just racing involved (which is good...strict racing games get boring really quickly). My favorite event types are Marked Man and Road Rage. Marked Man involves trying to get to an endpoint without getting totaled by the multiple unbranded Mustangs trying to total your car. Basically you have the choice of driving a fast car and being very susceptible to getting shoved into a wall (and having better ability to maneuver) or having a go at it with a larger, more durable car (or SUV, conversion van, or 4x4 truck) that is less susceptible to getting pushed into a wall, but much slower, with a turning radius roughly equivalent to that of a houseboat. The Road Rage event is exactly what it sounds like...your job is to smash cars into the wall (a specific number in a certain time, which is extended with every car you takedown). This is where the visuals shine brighest in the game...cars flying all over the place trying to wreck anyone they can, with spectacular crashing animations when you manage to takedown another vehicle. Criterion Games was not messing around when they made this game...it always runs butter smooth, looks fantastic, and there is a ton of variety. Is that too much to ask for from every racing game? (And the answer from every other racing game maker is YES). After I've gotten the highest license in single player (which will happen soon I'd imagine) I'm going to finally go online and I'll be sure to tell you if my overall opinion of the game gets better or worse (and at this point I'd give it a 9/10 if I were reviewing it, the only downfalls being the cumbersome menu system and the all over the place soundtrack).

I also played a few hours of Left 4 Dead this week against some former coworkers...I'm still trying to figure out if there is a good way to bull through the final chapter of No Mercy (on the roof of the hospital) without taking massive amounts of punishment. Every other campaign seems to have an almost foolproof gameplay trick on how to get through the last chapter (at least in advanced and below). If anyone knows of a good way to beat No Mercy without getting messed up, let me know, because I'm seriously tired of dying after the helicopter gets there when the third tank shows up.

As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to email the retropixels.org staff.

As promised, this is the first installment of What I'm Playing Now. I've been playing both the original Freedom Force and its sequel (Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich). As I'm trying to get together the first massive review, I've also been doing a decent amount of video capture and re-encoding of game footage. FRAPS does a magnificent job of capturing video without causing any lag, but it's video's take up massive amounts of space. I've been playing the original Freedom Force at 800x600 to limit the size, but even at that low resolution they take up about a gig a minute (which is why I'm re-encoding into high bitrate mpeg-2 for the time being). To give you an idea on the scary bitrates FRAPS puts out, a typical x264 1080p movie is encoded at around 10,000kbps. The captures I've been taking (at 800x600) are right around 320,000kbps (yes, 32 times as large as a 1080p video)...in fact, while taking video captures of Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich with FRAPS (at full 1080p resolution of 1920x1080 because I just bought a new 24" ViewSonic Monitor, and because it looks pretty), each 1:40 capture (that's 100 seconds of video) is taking up 4 gigs of space...the bitrate is usually upwards of 720,000kbps. To put that in perspective, 3 minutes of video is taking up what 2 hours of 1080p x264 video would. My Barracuda's and Caviar's tremble in anticipation of more video...

In addition to the Freedom Force games, I've also managed to play a few hours of Left 4 Dead online. I'd like to think I'm pretty decent at it (I am admittedly terrible at playing as the Infected, so forgot about Versus), so if anyone wants to give campaign a go I am certainly up for it. One thing I will say about the game (as it'll never get reviewed on here...it's not an older "retro" game, and it had no possibility of being overlooked as a Valve game) is that few games offer so much replayability. Even with only 4 campaigns, the challenge is never the same. If there's one thing Valve can never be questioned for (and in efforts of full disclosure, I think they are better at making computer games than anyone else) it's the AI in their games. The AI Director in Left 4 Dead always makes the experience different, and always makes it fun and challenging (except when all 4 people get pounced on by Hunters simultaneously in Expert difficulty...but I digress). The point is, if you haven't played it yet you are seriously missing out.

Other than playing games, I've been doing far too much photoshopping for my own good lately. The family wants cool posters on the walls in the game room, and since we can't find the perfect poster to buy, I have been making one (which happens to be a combination of multiple animated cartoon characters). I'm no expert on photoshop, but I think I've done about as well as I could. ITGeek recently put me on to watching some photoshop podcasts, and it's made me want to start using Photoshop more to figure out some of the more complicated stuff (but as my mind wanders frequently, we'll see if I ever do anything to fulfill the want to learn more).

As alway, contact us with any questions or concerns.

Once I finished the review for Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast, I started looking at where I would go next. The next game in the Shenmue series (Shenmue 2) was never released in the United States, but was ported to the Xbox in 2002. There is no easy way to play the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 with a US console. You can either mod your Dreamcast to play imports, and get your hands on the European version of the game, or find a copy of the game without region protection that will work on your Dreamcast.

In any case, for most people it is much easier to play the Xbox version of Shenmue 2. The Xbox version of the game is basically the same as the Dreamcast one that was available outside the United States. With some very minor graphical updates and english audio. Check out the video below to see a split screen comparison of the two versions.

I have changed my encoding workflow for this video. The old encoding system was introducing red flashes into the video, which was really anoying. This new system also crops the video to a better aspect ratio, so enjoy! Please let me know if you have any problems with the new videos.

Download this video as WMV FLV