Yup. Been away for a long time. If it's of any interest can you follow my blog over at http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/mnb/

Cheers guys, thanks for the times.

Yet again welcome to my 'new' series of blogs where I talk about those old games I used to play back in the day. the games that gave me "The Feeling". So what's the feeling? Well... I won't go into detail here since that would make this blog post way longer than it probably should be, but you're more than welcome to check out the introduction to get a ... feeling (joke alarm!) of what it's all about and eventually check out the previous entries in the series. For now however....? Enjoy ofcourse!

Hmm... so where shall we start? I think that were, this time around, are gonna take a jump back in time, back to the happy 90's.. or should I say 1998. So what happened in 98? Well besides being the year where 'Clinton did not have sex with that woman' and France won their own hosted World cup (best Wc ever by the way) was it also a, safe to say, quite remarkable year for gaming. Metal Gear Solid, Tekken 3, Ocarina of time you name it were/is all amazing, but were actually not gonna focus on one of those today, nope, instead we're gonna take a look on a game that gave me everything I could ask for from a video game at the time: Cars... Weapons.. Lightning speed.. and last, but not least, one of the, in my opinion, most amazing soundtracks to ever praise a video game to this date.

In my introduction did I blabled about how "the feeling" could be way more than just an awesome gameplay experience, or to quote myself: "May it be a story, music, character or whatever you might fall for, is one thing true, they're all potential ingredients in "the feeling"... Now that's poetic and also true, cause one of the key things that made me fall for this game in the first place was indeed it's flat out awesome soundtrack by none other than Fatboy Slim who released he's album 'You've come along way, baby' in the amazing year of 1998. A album that I picked up when I was 10 years old and a album that's still among my favourites to this very day, 10 years later... Soul Surfin' on the Love Island baby!

Ahem! anyways... awesome sound, but hey, that doesn't make a game alone! Hmm.. you're right. So hows cars? You like cars? Cars are cool, but how about double-sided cars!! Double...sided? Yea, you know cars with tires larger than the body... Cars that's able to drive on walls and ceilings.... with 4-500 miles per hour! That sure sounds fantastic doesn't it? Ofcourse it does, cause Rollcage is fantastic!

There you have it... if you haven't already guessed it by then... Rollcage for the original Playstation, released in 1999 (Yeah I know I said 1998 up there, don't ask), developed by the now dead studio 'Attention To Detail' (only remarkable game) and published by Psygnosis. I personally got the game from my dad who brought it home with him after a trip to town. The funny thing is that my dad is one big question mark when it comes to games and electronics, but on the other hand does he somehow loves to spend money on it so I suppose he went with whatever looked the coolest, and that must have been Rollcage.

And boy was I in for one awesome ride. Without really knowing what I was about to experience did I smack the disc into my old grey, half broken Playstation. Hmm... What do we have here? A futuristic arcade driving game?...with weapons? Sure looks interesting... And it was! It was actually a blast to play. Besides giving you a awesome sense of speed did the game really offer a good variety of cars and weapons. 6 different drivers each with their own car and one unlockable character competed on four different maps which each represented a different setting/landscape. From a Icy setting to a huge city and a mining place in the desert.

But wasn't it just another racing game for the PS1? It's not like it lacked those at the time with Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer around... Well Rollcage had a twist that none of the others had. A twist that made you able to drive on walls and ceilings while blasting your enemies with all sorts of weapons, from your standard homing misiles to Ice beams and the Continuum Warper, a weapon that slowed down all the other racers. Mix all this together and you have a game that's sure to give you a good experience. Rollcage didn't reinvent the racing genre, but it sure gave it a kick in one of the cooler directions and remains one of my, as with every other game on this 'list', favourite and most memorable games of all time.

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- mnbskydoll

First of all, welcome to part III in my new series of blogs describing the games that I have enjoyed the most in my life as a gamer. Please check out the introduction to get a hang of it all and even-
tually take a look at part I and part II if you feel for it. This time around were gonna focus on yet another game (surprise) I loved back in the day and one of my favourite games of all time, Enjoy.

Let's kick this one of with a piece of music to get us in the mood, please.

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"What was once a happy, peaceful, productive city, full of life and activity, has fallen into the hands of a secret criminal syndicate. The leader of the syndicate has somehow managed to keep his identity a secret. The organization soon absorbed the city government (anyone can be had if the price is right). They even had the metropolitan police force in their back pocket. Looting, random violence and destruction are rampant. No one is safe walking the streets, day or night...

As the chaos continued at full strength, three young police officers tried to establish a special attack unit. They were repeatedly turned down by their superiors, most of who had been bought by the organization or were too afraid to make a stand. One day, when they could no longer stand by and watch their city being demolished, they quit the force!

Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding decided to forego their careers in legal law enforcement and put their lives on the line. They are without weapons, but each possesses great hand-to-hand combat abilities. Take them into the heart of the city and battle the most dangerous wave of bad dudes and chicks ever assembled. Make the city a place where people no longer have to walk the Streets of Rage!"

If you haven't already figured out what game were talking about here is it (definetly) time to wake up and smell the sunshine. What you've just read up there is the plot of my favourite Beat em' up of all time, Streets of Rage for the Mega Drive II (Genesis) and undoubtly one of the games I loved and love the most. A game full of atmosphere.

Streets of Rage (or Bare Knuckle in Asia) was developed by Sega AM7 (Skies of Arcadia, Shinobi etc) and released by Sega themselfes in 1991 as an counter to the Snes version of Final Fight. I got the game a tad later though, along with my Genesis in the mid 90's (don't remember exactly) and was hooked right away. Actually it hooked two of us right away, me and my favourite "gaming partner". An old friend I still bring over to experience the coolest games (Especially Co-op) to this day. We were neighbours back then and when one of us had acquired a new game, we played it together. always. Streets of Rage was one of our favourites. We weren't older than probably 9 - 10 years old and picking up the character we felt suited us the best and taking out a whole town filled with punks, freaks, bosses and what not just felt awesome to us. The game featured 3 playable characters all with their own stats.

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Adam Hunter, a boxer, though a bit more slow than he's two counterparts. Adam is dressed in a yellow tanktop and something that looks like black leather pants. He sorta felt like a counter part to Axel and was my friends favourite character.

Axel Stone, martial arts specialist with blonde hair, blue jeans, white tanktop and a blue headband. And he loves video games! This was my character, don't really know why, just felt cool I guess. You might notice that Axel bears a strong similarity to Final Fight's Cody Travers.

Finally we have Blaze, the only playable female character. Faster than the two others, but also weaker. Dressed in a red tight suit this was eyecandy for two young boys haha. nah, cmon, nobody want's to be the girl : P

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Streets of Rage features one of the, in my opinion, most memorably and best video games soundtracks of all time. What you're (hopefully) listening to at the moment is actually "the theme song for SoR" composed by Yuzo Koshiro (Whom have also worked on some stuff for the new Smash Bros. by the way). The game spanded over 7 levels each with it's own track of music, everysingle one of them being dope.

The game was your 'standard sidescrolling Beat em' up game'. As said did it feature 7 levels, each different in look and ending with a boss. Our guys went to many different locations: From the dirty streets to the beach and even a big outdoor elevator. The levels were fun and varied and featured many different ways to take out the bad guys. Throw them into stuff, beat them with broken bottles, a bat or whatever you could find really added to the fun factor. You could even call the police for backup. They would then drive up in their Police Car and either fire a 'flame Bazooka' or 'Gattling Gun' based on which player you were. These attacks were ofcourse extremely powerful.

Besides your standard moves, which featured kick and hit combos, throws, *jumping knee strikes* etc. could you actually team up with your partner and do some (besides the feminine holds haha) sweet Co-op moves. Playing together in this game was fun and I can't count how many hours we have spent on playin' this game over and over.

Streets of Rage is a gem in my collection and I love playing the game, even this day. While the graphics looks quite bland (especially compared to the two other games in the series) and the game feels a bit dated, does the gameplay still deliver on every aspect. If you're into beat em up's and haven't tried this one, ever or for years..... and own a Wii, I certainly recommend spending the few bucks it costs on the Virtual Console and download the game. And oh, don't forget to bring over one of your good friend's. It sure won't dissapoint : )

- mnbskydoll

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First of all, welcome to part II in my new series of blogs describing the games that I have enjoyed the most and have the most fond memories of in my life as an gamer. Please check out the introduction and part I to get a hang of it all, if you feel for it. This time around However, were gonna kick it of by taking a small jump in time and focus on my first PC and a game I loooved back then. Please, enjoy : )

Anyways. This time were back in 1998. It's been 4 years since I got my first gaming system, the gameboy, and a lot of stuff have happened since. Not only did I expand my game library for the gameboy by huge amounts, but I was also about to turn 10 years old. As we all know does a 10 year old birthday automatically equals a new computer, and luckily for me, that's what I got. Unfortunatly we were starting to feel the age on my brothers old one and it simply weren't worth much anymore : ( On the other hand was the games really starting to evolve drastically around this time, especially in the graphic's field and what would support that better than my new monster... a 400 mhz and 64 RAM + 15" monitor fresh from the factory? : P. This was some heavy stuff back then, atleast for us. A powerhouse like no other and a machine I kept playing on for 4 years before gettin' a new. A machine that introduced me to some of my favourite games of all time, games i'm never gonna grow tired of and games im never gonna forget : ).

And why not take one of the games I remember the best for the machine, and one of the games I loved the most when I was a kid? A game I remember stumbling upon in a local tv store (with a small selection of video games) back in 1999. I was exaggerated to say the least. It was totally unexspected that I would find this game ive read so much about, in some sucky magazine, in a store like this. And 15 bucks!?! A price I almost couldn't believe back then. I even remember asking the clerk if it was really true. And yes... yes it was, he said. I aqquired it the sec after and I went home with my big boxed copy of Carmageddon 2 : Carpocalypse now.

This game was the evil, and boy did I love it : P. Not only did the boxart sorta scream it (pic), but the whole gameplay was about crashing and killing the other drivers + take out any pedestrians in your way! They even had to censor the humans (here in europe atleast) by making them look more like zombie's and spill green blood due to the "realistic looking" slaughter that was going on under a race. The more you took down in this game, the more you scored, and doing special kills like crashing an innocent civilian into a wall aswell as killing in "unnormal and fascinating ways" all added to your total score/money.

Carmageddon 2 was the second game by Stainless Games with the first one being the original. This wasn't your normal car game. There weren't any route you absolutely had to take and victory could often be achieved by taking out (note, totally destroying) the other drivers. Push them of a cliff/into something explosive or simply just smash them trough literally 'everything' was only a few ways to do so and added to a fun and varried gameplay experience.

You had the choice between a big bunch of totally different cars. Completing races opened up for new ones and the cars varied a lot, both in looks and strength's. Some of them even had spikes/rolling blades etc attached to them. While some were fast, others were strong and you really felt that you had "your own personal car". It was also one of the few games, at the time, that featured deformable vehicles. Smashing into an opponent, wall or whatever you might want to crash into could seriously smack you car, often leaving your with a broken ride, (like for example only 2 wheels on the ground og splitted in two halfs) which fortunatly could be repaired right on the fly, making repairing on the right time an important part of the game. However, repairs aren't free... we all know that. And how did we earn money in this game? You guessed it : ) by killing and causing devastation.

With a soundtrack from none other than Iron maiden (my favourite band btw, though I remember we did mix it up with Offspring's Conspiracy of one album), great designed tracks and lots of tearing people appart was this the perfect game for an 10 year old boy. Hah, guess not, but I did enjoy it... a lot, and this is easily one of the games I have played the most (though it's many years ago now) and I loved every single bit of it. While all this may sound a bit sick, it's not as brutal as I'm probably making it out to be (don't believe that). Guess there's nothing left to say other than Carmageddon 2 was an awesome game and surely deserves a spot among my favourite games ever.

- mnbskydoll

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I think it's safe to say that I got an love for old games that I used to play "back in the day" (yea yea, I know im not that old, but hey). Some people refer to it as nostalgia, I however like to call it "the feeling". The feeling is something I have covered in my blogs before and you might remember some of my earlier posts if you're a long time reader : )!. For the newcomers however (if there's any that is) please enjoy and let me give you a short runthrough of what it's all about:

We all know (even you!) how it is to pick up a game you once loved to death and play it all over again, just to experience that the nostalgia/feeling have gone. Suddenly you realise that this wasn't everything you made it up to be in the first place and puts it back on the shelf where it probably belongs. While these games might not necessarily be all that great, you still got those sweet memories of em' burried within you. For me those games are the one that matters the most and it's those games I would rather have on my shelf than any others. Most of them are mainly from my childhood while others are actually pretty new, but they're few and far between unfortunatly. While many of them literally sucks when you look at them from a reviewing point and that the greatness you saw in them when you were young, were mainly because you were... well, young, they're still holding a place in your heart (tissues please). That's what the feeling is about! and that's what I love from gaming. To get an cool, awesome, thrilling moment that you won't just forget like that. May it be a story, music, character or whatever you might fall for, is one thing true, they're all potential ingredients in "the feeling".

But haven't you heard all this before?!? Why does he keep blabling about this oversensitive "the feeling"? hah, what's up with that name anyway? Yea well heh, I actually understand you if that's what you're thinking, but hey, that's the kinda stuff I love to write about and the way I want to go with this blog : ). I want you all to know that these series of blog's will be written mainly for my own sake and it's a thing ive wanted to do for a long long time, but you're more than welcome (and I would love that) to drop by and eventually leave a comment if it's of any interest : )

Ive been thinking bout' putting this whole thing into a timeline and sorta make a "review of my life" as an gamer from my first years when I got an Nintendo Gameboy in christmas present back in 1994 to today where I own most of the next gen consoles. At the moment I'm sitting here with an list of over 100 games that have given me the nostalgia trip (!) and putting them into some sort of timeline would be near impossible. So what im gonna do instead is to take a game from it, once in a while whenever I feel for it, and give you a little information not only about the game, but also about my experience and history with it. If you made it this long - congrats and thanks for taking you time (appreciated).

Feel free to check out:

The Feeling - part 1 - Turtles? Toads!
The Feeling - part 2 - The freeway is jammed
The Feeling - part 3 - Turmoil in the Streets
The Feeling - part 4 - You've come a long way, baby
The Feeling - Part 5 - Bermuda Syndrome
The Feeling - Part 6 - Crazy Caterpillar
The Feeling - Special - My top 20 video game music of all time Part 1

- mnbskydoll