We're Cruis'n USA!
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! It’s just Julian and Justin this week, and we THOUGHT it was a short episode. But then Julian realized that Justin picked a music topic for Stage Select, which tacked on 45 minutes of music into this bad boy. But hey, at least it’s GOOD music, right? Right?!
The original Geometry Wars
My earliest memory of Qix began sometime in the mid-90s when I saw it listed in a Funcoland price sheet (remember those?) and thought it was pronounced “quicks”. As a kid, I thought it was a rule that all words spelled with a “Q” had to be pronounced with the qu inflection. But years of expanded vocabulary eventually proved me wrong. In short, the game’s title is pronounced “kicks”- because I suppose the developer Taito wanted you to get your kicks playing Qix. See what they did there?
Money tight? Why not play an amazing game from yesteryear for cheap?
Hello all, April is over. Now we move on from the showers into May. May doesn't seem to be brimming with exciting new titles this month. Rage 2 is probably the highlight. While the original was fairly mixed, maybe this new entry can boost the series. We also have the new kart racer, Team Sonic Racing. I know we have all been waiting for this. While May be a bit light in 2019, it has historically hit some grand slams this generation. Let's take a look.
Family Matters
August of this year will mark the 20th anniversary since Dragon Quest was introduced in the US. With 10 core sequels and many spin-offs since then, you’d think an RPG fan such as myself would be well-versed in the series by now. But in reality, my Dragon Quest knowledge over the years has only been cursory at best. I got started about eight years ago when I completed Dragon Warrior (the series’ name in the US until 2005), and I’m currently nearly halfway through the massive adventure that is Dragon Quest XI. My depth of familiarity with the series pretty much ends there. Or at least it did until I recently finished Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride- a Nintendo DS remake of the beloved Super Famicom original.
This RPG is a real grind. No dragon your feet here.
If there’s one thing I absolutely adore about Dragon Warrior (aka Dragon Quest), it’s how much its subtle charms have influenced each sequel to come after it. There’s just something special about playing the latest game in the series (currently Dragon Quest XI) and still hearing the familiar sound cues of attacking an enemy, taking a hit, or the brief but satisfying victory chime and level-up fanfare. Additionally, the character designs by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball creator and illustrator) give a visual continuity throughout each game. Without question, the Dragon Quest series has laid down some deep roots that all started here. But although it's a beloved first entry for nostalgic fans of the series, newcomers might not warm up to certain gameplay elements that would not be refined until much later.
Excelsior!
If you thought the last episode of Nerds Without Pants was super-sized, you have another think coming! This is our longest show so far, but every minute of it is pure gold. We have the host of the Clickbait Update podcast (and NWP super contributor) to tackle a massive AMA for Stage Select. So go do a bunch of chores and let us entertain you!
Don't be missing out on this fascinating game.
The Missing is one of those games that forces you to immediately reflect on the entire experience once the credits roll. As the game comes to a close you’re presented with some truths that reshape your understanding of everything you’ve seen. To properly discuss The Missing, delving into the details of the ending is necessary. It reframes the entire adventure and it’s why this game is worth playing.
A game about busy work.
Car Quest is one of those weird experiences that isn’t particularly fun or engaging, but can tap into your OCD tendencies and keep you playing even when you’d rather not. Its design is rather mundane - you drive around a world collecting an artifact at a time, which opens up a new area of the map where you’ll collect a new artifact, which will in turn open a new area of that map where you’ll collect… well, you get the point. This cycle is only broken on occasion where you’ll gain access to a portal that requires a certain number of batteries to get into. In the portal you’ll do more of what you do in the main world, just on a smaller scale, until you earn an artifact to use back in the main world, where the cycle continues.
All warped out.
Velocity 2X, by all measures, is a well made game. It has a pretty extensive amount of content including 50 core levels with a healthy number of objectives to achieve in each, a set of unlockable puzzle-based bonus levels, and the Switch version even includes the DLC out-of-the-box. But even after completing the whole game, I never really felt satisfied with it. While there’s a lot of content, each level feels similar to the last and this lack of diversity eventually wore me down. By the time the credits rolled, I was relieved to be done with it.
Being a delivery boy has never been so much fun.
It’s not often that a game does something that completely surprises me, but The Messenger managed to catch me totally off guard. What appears to be a modern 8-bit take on Ninja Gaiden suddenly morphs into something more at the halfway point of the game. Its once linear levels branch out and become a Metroid-like maze, with hidden secrets abound. Not only that, but the graphics and sound boost into 16-bit and the world takes on an extra level of detail. While this gimmick was incredibly cool, the tight gameplay and intricate level design is what makes The Messenger a truly special experience.
