Devastators and HG101

[celerystalker]

I generally really enjoy harcoregaming101.net. I've read the majority of their articles over the years, and have taken chances on several games due to some nicely provocative screens and descrptions. Recently, though, I seem to run into a lot of errors especially on articles on arcade games. I can only guess that this is due to most of these games being played through emulation.

Anyway, just got in a Devastators board set, as I've been pining away for GI Joe for years, but can't seem to stumble across a good pcb for it, and Devastators looked like its slow ancestor (it is). I was reading up on it while waiting, and the article on HG101 curiously states that the cover obstacles in the game can be walked and shot through, which is categorically wrong. I was just disappointed, not at the game, but in the article, as I've always looked at the site as a great source of info. Just wondering if anyone else has run into similar misinformation, especially in regard to arcade games being reviewed from emulation alone. Or, if anyone wants to talk Devastators. I like it so far, but after years of GI Joe memories, it does feel a tad sluggish.

I miss the days when Konami was so awesome.

[sfchakan]

I'm sure if you raised the point to Kurt, he would remove the line from the review. Hell, I'll send him a link to this thread so he knows about it.

[Edmond Dantes]

HG101 is a great site to learn about games, but I always take whatever information they dish out with a grain of salt, because very often its either wrong, or its of a "from a certain point of view" type of accuracy.

And then their RPG articles tend to be bad about outright spoilers, which renders them ones where I have to be careful not to go too far if I want to actually play the game. In one of the most extreme cases, their bit on Persona 2: Eternal Punishment starts up by basically telling you how the previous game (Persona 2: Innocent Sin) ended. A mistake they later repeat with the Digital Devil Saga duology.

[celerystalker]

I do really like that site a lot. It's my home page on my cell phone, even. I think that there's somewhat of a tendency for authors (not just on that site) to pick a primary version of the game being written about, and then gloss over other ports or versions. I get it, as they're trying to have pretty exhaustive coverage of whole series, and it's not always plausible to play an obscure PC-88 port at length. Personally, over the years I've really come to appreciate it when people maybe mention what they haven't played as existing, but don't try to describe it third hand.

For instance, Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundoukai on PCE is a favorite of mine. I bought the Famicom version and the PS3 remake, and even the goofy DS sequel. I'd largely ignored the Game Boy version, as I'd read that it's the same game with the ball breaking event replaced with a bread eating event. While that is true, that is largely undescriptive, as it could mean a button mashing event or something, where it's actually more or less a brawl in which you want to hold the bread and jam on a button in order to chew, and whoever gets the last bite wins. You can even hit people with the bread. Not only that, but there's an all new hot potato-style fight event with a roulette screen to decide who starts out with the bomb attached to them, and you can only pass it by attacking other players. However, when it goes off, it takes a huge amount of energy, effectively disabling that character for the next several rounds, and you can get caught in the blast even if you don't have it. It's a game changer, but goes totally unmentioned.

I don't mean to nitpick, as it truly is probably the best site out there in many ways. I only feel the need to talk about it because the whole point of the site is how much better researched and complete the information is.

[discoalucard]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Since we use MAME (or console ports if available) to write our reviews, sometimes those can result in errors which may not have been intended. I double checked in Devastators, and even in the current versions, you can walk through obstacles. You can't shoot through most of them, but due to some strange sprite priorities, it looks like you can for some of them (like the jets in the second stage). If this is not in your PCB, then it's almost definitely a glitch in MAME. So I'll definitely fix that up.


And then their RPG articles tend to be bad about outright spoilers, which renders them ones where I have to be careful not to go too far if I want to actually play the game. In one of the most extreme cases, their bit on Persona 2: Eternal Punishment starts up by basically telling you how the previous game (Persona 2: Innocent Sin) ended. A mistake they later repeat with the Digital Devil Saga duology.

The English version of Eternal Punishment spoils the ending of Innocent Sin right in the manual, since the game had not been released in English at that point. Digital Devil Saga 2 spoils itself on the back cover. I've read people complained that we spoiled the first hour of Dragon Quest V, but it's impossible to discuss the entire premise of the game without doing it.

[celerystalker]

Thanks for taking an interest and correcting it. I enjoy the site a ton.